12 Kolkata: A shoe trader, Sanu Ram, (28), residing at VIP Bazar off EM Bypass was allegedly kidnapped and murdered by five persons, at least two of them his close friends, on Jan 31. His body was then dumped in a canal in the Baruipur area. Baruipur police recovered his body on Wednesday. Anandpur police have arrested four of the five accused.
Four days after committing the murder, the accused decided to transfer money from Ram's account using his mobile phone. They went to a shop to unlock the phone and transferred Rs 1 lakh to another account. The money was then withdrawn from an ATM, leading to the police getting their first but most vital breakthrough.
According to DC (East) Arish Bilal, the victim, Sanu Ram, went missing on Jan 31 after leaving his shop near Kasba Industrial Estate. His wife last spoke with him at 8 pm on that day, and he assured her that he would return homesoon. A missing diary was lodged and later a kidnapping case was started. "We came to know that Anup Mondal (32), the person Ram left with and the victim's close friend, was also missing from Jan 31 night.
A further probe revealed that an online transaction of Rs 1 lakh from Ram's account was made to Amit Naskar's account in Sonarpur on Feb 3 when Ram was "still missing."
"Naskar confessed that Mondal and another 16-year-old transferred the money using a QR code scan. Mondal was arrested, and he confessed to murdering Ram and dumping his body in a canal in Baruipur. Mondal had offered to take Ram to a party on the Narendrapur-Sonarpur border, where he got Ram drunk. The five accused then strangled him to death," said DC Bilal.
Police have arrested Mondal and apprehended the minor. The two other arrested men have been identified as Khokhan Baidya (36), and Pradip Nayaban (32), All except the juvenile have been remanded in police custody till Feb 17. "A fifth accused, Ranjan Chakraborty, is still at large. We have launched a manhunt to try and nab him," said DC Bilal.
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