Mutilated body out of women’s bag in city: Kolkata police arrest mother-daughter duo
Telegraph | 26 February 2025
Two women who were seen dragging a visibly heavy trolley bag along a crowded ghat of the Hooghly in north Calcutta around 7.30am on Tuesday were stopped by passers-by and asked what was inside.
They said a laptop. But out came the mutilated body of a woman.
The feet had been chopped off from the ankle to fit the body into the bag, police said.
The two women — identified as Arati Ghosh, 55, an ayah, and her daughter Falguni, 34, who works at a lawyer’s chamber in Barasat — allegedly killed the elderly woman, Sumita Ghosh, a sister of Arati’s father-in-law, and stuffed the body in the bag at their Madhyamgram home about 25km away.
Morning walkers and residents of the neighbourhood at north Calcutta’s Ahiritola stopped Arati and Falguni, who were wearing surgical masks, and questioned them about the bag that the duo were finding difficult to drag.
The blue, mid-sized trolley had stains of what looked like blood on it. The more the people wanted the women to open the bag, the more guarded the duo became.
Initially, one of the women said there was a laptop in the bag and that she would open the trolley only at the place where she would dump it.
Some of the onlookers informed the police. When the cops arrived and people started to crowd around the women, they were forced to open the bag. Inside was the lifeless body of a sari-clad woman.
“We received information that two women were moving around suspiciously with a trolley bag. The police went to the spot and detained the two. The trolley bag was opened. A woman’s body was found inside,” Calcutta police commissioner Manoj Verma said.
Sumita was a native of Jorhat in Assam and was married to a resident of Nadanghat in Burdwan. The police said that after her separation from her husband, Sumita had gone to Arati’s home on February 11.
“There was some dispute on Monday after which the crime was committed. Kolkata police have started a murder case. We have informed the Barasat police also. The reconstruction of the crime will be done later,” Verma said.
The police said that according to the statement of the accused, Arati and Falguni, who is separated from her husband, had an altercation with Sumita on Monday afternoon.
“Falguni pushed Sumita to the wall and she became unconscious. When she came to, she reportedly became more aggressive and there was another round of fight during which Falguni hit Sumita with a brick on her face or neck area. Sumita fell unconscious again,” said an officer of the Port Division.
The mother and daughter stuffed Sumita’s body in a trolley bag and decided to dispose of it.
Swapan Das, the owner of the one-storey house at Bireshpally in Madhyamgram where the women live, told The Telegraph that Arati had rented it in 2023. He said he had asked the mother-daughter to vacate the house since neighbours had been complaining about them.
CCTV footage from the Doltala crossing in Barasat purports to show Arati and Falguni coming out of their neighbourhood with a blue trolley bag kept on a cycle van at 5.49am on Tuesday. Arati is seen sitting on the van with the trolley bag while Falguni is walking beside it. The van puller is also seen in the footage.
The women hired a white taxi after crossing the road and loaded the bag in its boot. CCTV footage from the Ahiritola Ghat later in the morning shows them getting off the taxi and walking towards the river bank with the trolley. The police said they were examining if the women went to other locations as well in the taxi.
“We usually check vehicles at the nakas. But it is practically not possible to check all cars. It is a matter of concern that a trolley containing a body has been brought all the way from Barasat to Calcutta,” police commissioner Verma said.
“Who is bringing what in a bag from Madhyamgram is difficult to assess. When we do surprise naka checkings, all these are checked. But that is practically not possible 24X7. Yes, these women have reached here with a dead body from Barasat. This is a cause of worry for us and we will definitely review the situation,” Verma said.