Kolkata: The murder in a bustling area of Uttar Panchannagram, a neighbourhood off E M Bypass, on Friday evening sent shock waves through the area, which is not new to crimes and street fights. Police on Saturday cordoned off the scene of the crime, which still bore blood stains despite night-long showers.
“It was like a scene out of a potboiler. Two men, their faces covered, stabbed another man right outside our house.I tried to scream but no sound came out. I should have called police, but I didn’t even have the courage to do so,” said a woman, who lives at Peace Tower, an apartment next to Topsia Road, where building material contractor and small-time promoter Arif Khan was stabbed to death.
TOI on Saturday briefly reported on Khan’s murder on Jaributi Gully, a stertch of Topsia Road.
According to people in the area, the incident took place in front of several people —many froze on the road at the sight and many gaped in horror out of their balconies and windows—but none could do anything. “I got a call from a youth, saying my brother was killed. I ran to the spot to find a large crowd standing at a distance, watching Arif bleed. Arif pulled off the gamchha from one of the assailants’ face and it was Abbas,” said Khan’s sister.
Police said areas of EM Bypass between Science City and Ruby hospital was notorious for crimes but the lane, where the murder took place, was a neighbourhood, where many new flats were coming up with people from other parts settling there. “My six-year-old child kept asking why those people were attacking the man. I didn’t know what to say. I wonder if we made a mistake buying a flat here,” said Md Ali, who lives nearby.
Khan’s mother and sister told TOI he was sleeping at home when a friend, Murad, called five-seven times. “Arif went out at 6.45pm and within the minutes, we heard, he was attacked,” said Rashida Khatun, Arif’s mother. Murad later said he had called Khan for adda. “When the men attacked him, I fled in fear,” he said.
Khan suffered stabs, mostly in the lower portion of his body. The CCTV images show a local tough, Abbas. He and the two others can be in neighbouring states, say police. “Abbas worked for a man in Tiljala with whom Khan spoke on phone between May 1 and July 26,” said an officer.