Two school students were found dead in a roadside ditch near Kolkata, more than two weeks after their kidnapping.
Four people have been arrested in connection with the case, while two more, including the main accused Satyendra Chowdhury, are yet to be arrested.
The bodies were recovered after one of the arrested accused revealed that the boys had been killed soon after they were kidnapped on August 22. They were strangled in a moving car and then thrown in the ditch.
Atanu Dey and Abhishek Naskar were kidnapped from the Baguihati area of Kolkata.
Atanu’s family members had received ransom calls, but, according to the police, the other victim, Abhishek, was killed only to eliminate evidence.
The motive for the kidnapping was to extort ₹ 50,000 to buy a bike, police said.
The families of the victims claim that the police have not been prompt in their investigation, a charge that the police have denied.
“We had kept all possibilities open when we started our probe. In the meantime, they received ransom messages, but they could not establish contact with the kidnappers. Because ransom calls were being made, we were also very alert and were conducting the probe carefully to ensure there was no untoward incident,” said Biswajit Ghosh of Bidhannagar Police.
The police also said they hadn’t presumed that the boys had died until one of the arrested accused confessed to the murder.
“During our probe we got a breakthrough when we arrested Abhijit Bose. After Bose was interrogated, he broke down and confessed that on the 22nd, he along with Satyendra and two three others in the car and strangled the children on the Basanti Highway between 8 and 10pm. They admitted to dropping the two bodies at two different places ahead on the highway,” Mr Ghosh said.
Atanu and the main accused, Satyendra Chowdhury – whose home was vandalised today by angry locals – were known to each other.
The family says the police did not act on their complaint seriously. Atanu Dey’s mother claims she even went to the Chief Minister’s residence to seek help but was denied entry by the security personnel.
As soon as we got this information, we started inquiring with South 24 Parganas police in Baruipur and Basirhat to find unidentified dead bodies.” Mr Ghosh added.
The bodies of the students were recovered earlier but they were sent to the police morgue as unidentified bodies.
