Journalism of Courage
Also written by Atri Mitra
The window, which faced Bandhuprakash Pal’s house, always used to remain open. Hardly 12 feet away, Rana Biswas now kept that window shut since Tuesday. His family now even avoided looking at that “cursed” house.
Pal (40), his wife Beauty Pal (30) and their son Angan (5) were found murdered at their home in Lebu Bagan area of Jiaganj on Tuesday afternoon. While the body of the teacher and his son were found in one room, the wife’s body was found in another. Police sources said Pal and his wife were hacked to death by a sharp weapon, while their son was strangulated and his head hit with a heavy object to ensure that he died. The post-mortem reports are awaited.
“Pal’s house has now become a nightmare for us. We do not even look at it. We asked the police to close the windows that were open even after the incident,” said Biswas (35), a fast food shop owner, standing beside his wife Chhobi Das Biswas. Their house is located behind Pal’s house.
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Fear gripped the area after a video of the murdered victims went viral.
According to local residents, despite the area being densely populated, with houses huddling against each other, no one heard any scream on Vijaya Dashami, the day when incident took place. People were sitting and chatting just 10 feet away from Pal’s house, in front of a Radha Krishna temple. Not only Rana, even others in the neighbourhood were terrified.
Residents of Lebu Bagan area told The Indian Express that nearly one-and-half year ago, Pal and his family moved here and started living in the under-construction house. Recently, he built a small portico in front of the house.
A two-storied building behind Pal’s house also belonged to their family.
“He was constructing the house slowly,” said his next-door neighbour Sunita Halder.
According to Pal’s neighbours, the family was not very social.
“But Pal always had a smiling face and used to greet people whenever he came across them,” said Biswas.
Another immediate neighbour Pankaj Sarkar, who worked in Delhi at a placement agency and was back home for Durga Puja, claimed that he had seen a man, suspected to be the assailant, running away from the house.
“I was sitting in front of the Radha Krishna temple with some of my friends. Around noon, I saw a man wearing a t-shirt and trousers running away from the house to the other side of the street. I followed the man but failed to catch him. After that I returned and saw many people standing in front of Pal’s house saying that all members of the family were brutally murdered. I didn’t go into the house but saw videos of the dead bodies on social media. The pictures are so brutal that they haunt us till date,” said Sarkar.
Sarkar’s elder brother Monoj Sarkar, who is a former councillor of that area, said: “We are one of the oldest residents of this area. It is very peaceful and we never saw such a brutal crime happening here. We are now worried that the police failed to arrest the people behind the murders.”
He added, “We demand immediate arrest of the culprits and exemplary punishment for them.”
