Kolkata: Father found hanging with toddler, mother dead in another room
Telegraph | 5 March 2025
A family of three, including a three-and-half-year-old boy, were found hanging at their home in Haltu’s Purbapally on Tuesday morning.
The Kasba police suspect the 40-year old Somnath Roy, an auto-rickshaw driver, had killed the child, Rudranil, before ending his life. Whether he had also killed his wife Sumitra is still not clear. The post-mortem reports of the three victims are awaited.
On Tuesday morning Nilima Ghoshal, Somnath’s maternal aunt, knocked on the family’s door. No one responded. Hearing her shouts, neighbours gathered outside the residence and the cops were called. After the police broke the door, the three bodies were found in two rooms.
According to the neighbours, Somnath had told a fellow auto driver on the Gariahat-Ruby hospital route on Monday night that he was going on a holiday and had handed over the keys of his vehicle.
Neighbours alleged that Somnath had a property dispute with his maternal uncle and his wife, who live in the same house. Somnath was also in debt, they said.
“We don’t know what happened last night. For the last few days, they were keeping to themselves and would not even open the windows. Even the child was not allowed outside,” said Debjani Saha, a neighbour.
The neighbours said Somnath was the sole earning member in his family and was also responsible for his in-laws. Recently, he had bought a flat for his mother-in-law and was under pressure from money-lenders to clear his debt.
“He gave Rs. 2,000 to another auto driver and asked him to refill his vehicle’s fuel tank. He had never behaved this way before,” said Ashok Das, an auto driver on the Gariahat-Ruby Hospital route.
The death of the Roy family is the third such incident in Kolkata and its surrounding areas in the last three weeks. In Tangra, three women of a family were found dead and their husbands had attempted to drive themselves to death and were rescued from an accident spot on the Eastern Metropolitan bypass.
On Monday night, the city police arrested Prasun Dey, the prime accused in the Tangra multiple homicide, after he was discharged from the state-run Nil Ratan Sircar medical college and hospital.
In Behala’s Shakuntala Park, a 53-year old trader and his 23-year old autistic daughter were found hanging inside their rented flat on Monday.