Dipak’s cable staff,3 contract killers held

According to police,Munna Dhali hired three contract killers — Naba Dhali,Sattar Mondal and Bijoy Das — to kill Bhattacharyas and their helps for the sole motive of looting the house.

The motive

Munna,who used to collect cable rent from the households that availed the cable TV services from Dipak,knew that by the fifth day of every month,at least Rs 5 lakh were collected and kept in a wooden cupboard where Dipak’s mother,Gauri Bhattacharya,lived. Every month as Munna used to collect the cable rent and hand over the money to Gauri,she used to ask him to keep it in a wooden cupboard.

The execution

“Munna ,who hatched the conspiracy to loot the money,hired three contract killers of his own locality. On Thursday, they entered Dipak’s house around 11.30 am. Since Munna was known to the helps,he was let in. Later,Munna took the other three inside the house and closed all the windows and doors. They first killed the cook,Anima Mondak,and then the help,Moyna Roy. After which,they went upstairs and killed Deepak and then her mother. After killing all of them by slitting their throats,Munna broke open the lock of the cupboard where he did not find the money,” said a senior police officer,part of the investigating team.

Munna reportedly tried to open all other cupboards too,but he could not do so. Meanwhile,one of them lost his nerves and fell unconscious. This panicked the rest and they tried to wash the weapons. As the phone started ringing,they all left the house in hurry and could not take anything from the house,added the officer.

The probe

The investigators zeroed in on Munna after they interrogated all the staff members of the cable shop. Police learnt that Munna did not join duty between 12-12 .30 pm,which is the usual time for him to reach the cable shop. Significantly,post mortem reports revealed that the gruesome murders were committed between 12-12.30 pm. Munna reached office around 2 pm. “When we interrogated Munna about his whereabouts between 12 and 12.30 pm,he did not give any coherent answers. We checked all the places where he claimed he was. However,all of his statements appeared to be false. We checked with the tower location of his mobile phone,which revealed that Munna was in Dipak’s locality at that time,” said the officer.

The arrests

All the four were arrested from Amdanga area in South 24-Parganas and produced before the Alipore Court,which remanded them to police custody till September 21.