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Journalism of Courage
More than 24 hours have passed since a 60-year-old jeweller was found murdered inside his shop with his legs tied in the Baranagar area near Kolkata. But the police have made little headway in the murder probe, except that five youths were involved in it. The police are yet to identify them.
Till Sunday, police found an iron rod and some red chilli powder at the murder spot. “Probably, the assailants had thrown red chilli powder at Sankar Jana, the jeweller, and used the iron rod to assault him,” said an officer.
The post-mortem report stated that Jana died from “blunt force trauma”.
On Sunday morning, a forensic team accompanied the Detective Department (DD) officials of the Barrackpore Police Commissionerate to the crime scene to collect more evidence. According to police, at least 10 CCTV camera recordings are being looked into to zero in on the killers.
“From the CCTV visuals, it is understood that five youths, aged between 20 and 25 years, were involved in the murder,” said an officer associated with the probe.
According to the investigators, the assailants might have escaped using the Metro or the train. Therefore, CCTV footage has been sought to track the movement of the five alleged assailants.
Police have also contacted the Government Railway Police (GRP) as the Dumdum Metro and railway station is just 2 km away from the shop.
According to a senior police officer, Jana’s mobile phone is still missing and it is switched off. Police sources said that one of the assailants may have been in touch with Jana and are probing the jeweller’s call record as well.
Police said the jewellery shops generally stay closed in the afternoon from 2 pm to 3 pm. They are probing why Jana kept his shop open on Saturday afternoon.
“The assailants appeared to have carried out prior reconnaissance of the area and the shop. They may have chosen the afternoon time for the murder because several neighbouring businesses were closed after the Durga Puja festivities, leaving narrow lanes unusually empty,” a police officer had said earlier.
On Saturday, Barrackpore Police Commissioner Murlidhar Sharma had said the assailants had come with an intention to loot the shop and had conducted the murder and loot within 15 minutes of entering the shop.
Jana was found in his jewellery shop on Saturday afternoon with his legs tied with a rope. Local shopkeepers took him to a nearby hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival.
His body was later shifted to Baranagar state general hospital for post-mortem.
Jana’s son arrived in Kolkata late from Delhi on Saturday night and lodged a complaint with the police. It was Jana’s son who got suspicious after he saw the shop’s CCTV screens going black on Saturday afternoon. He called his father but received no response, and then alerted the neighbouring shopkeepers, who found Jana lying in a pool of blood.
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