Mom & daughter caught at Kumartuli ghat, trying to dump suitcase stuffed with body
Times of India | 26 February 2025
Kolkata: Two women — a mother and daughter — were caught at Kumartuli ghat, north Kolkata, early Tuesday while trying to throw a body into the Hooghly, stuffed inside a trolley bag.
Cops said Falguni Ghosh (34) and her mother Arati Ghosh (55) killed the victim, the younger woman's aunt-in-law, over personal enmity or a property dispute. A murder probe is on.
Falguni and Arati are residents of Madhyamgram in North 24 Parganas, around 20km from where they were trying to dump the body. They had lived in Kumartuli years ago, cops said.
The two of them were caught red-handed around 7.10am. Kumartuli ghat is usually buzzing with activity around that time of day. On Tuesday, the ghat was more crowded than usual, because people had huddled there since 6.10am, when Kolkata felt earthquake tremors. It was these assembled locals, who sensed something amiss and called the cops, seeing the women struggling to carry the heavy bag.
The locals forced the women to open the bag to find the body of a woman, later identified as Sumita Ghosh (50), a resident of Assam's Jorhat. The legs had been chopped so that the body could fit inside. "The accused arrived in a taxi and were struggling with a very heavy trolley bag," said DC (Port) Hari Krishna Pai.
The women told the locals that the bag contained the body of their pet dog. But when someone forced the bag open, it soon became clear that the body was of a human.
Postmortem has been conducted.
CCTV footage from Madhyamgram's Dakshin Biresh Pally, where the women stay, showed the two of them carrying the bag on a van rickshaw. The women's neighbours claimed that the murder was carried out to silence Sumita, who has been protesting against the duo's "immoral activities". The neighbours also reported multiple arguments between Sumita and the two women since Sumita arrived from Jorhat on Feb 11.
Local councillor Prakash Raha confirmed receiving complaints about the duo's alleged activities. "We warned both the landlord and the tenants to take action immediately. The landlord assured me they would be evicted by March," Raha told TOI.
Joint CP (crime and traffic) Rupesh Kumar said Sumita had arrived in Madhyamgram on Feb 11. "There was an altercation at 4pm on Monday between Falguni and Sumita over some issue. Falguni reportedly pushed Sumita to the wall, rendering her unconscious. However, when Sumita regained consciousness, they again started arguing. This time, Falguni reportedly hit her on the face and neck with a brick, following which she became senseless and, eventually, died. The accused had lived in Kumartuli years ago, and so decided to dump the body there," he added.
The two of them reportedly even did the rounds of Prinsep Ghat and Babughat, but changed plans when they found the areas too crowded.
The cops said a forensics team from Lalbazar had visited the two women's home in Madhyamgram, along with Falguni, to reconstruct the crime.
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