Second loan agent arrested in connection with deaths of husband, wife and child in Kasba
Telegraph | 10 March 2025
A second loan agent has been arrested in connection with the deaths of Somnath Roy and his wife in Kasba.
Roy and his wife, Sumitra, were found hanging at their Kasba home. The body of their two-and-a-half-year-old child was found hanging from a sling around his father’s neck.
The family was allegedly unable to bear the pressure of their debt and loan sharks, such as the one arrested.
Somshubra Mondal, 24, was arrested in Sonarpur on the southern outskirts of the city.
Police tracked him down to his house after finding his name among those scribbled on the walls of the house in Kasba.
Mondal is the second agent arrested on the charge of abetting the suicides of the couple.
The cops said Mondal, too, had helped Roy secure loans.
On Thursday, the police arrested Chanchal Mukhopadhyay on the same charge as that of Mondal — abetting the suicides.
“Like Mukhopadhyay, Mondal assisted Roy in securing loans in small amounts ranging between ₹1.62 lakh and ₹5 lakh from different banks, financial institutions and instant loan providing platforms,” said a senior officer of Kasba police station.
The police said Mondal allegedly kept mounting pressure on Roy to return the money.
On Friday, officers traced him to Notun Pally in Subhasgram in Sonarpur, around 30km south of Calcutta. He was arrested in the early hours of Saturday.
“Mondal’s name was written on the wall of the Kasba house,” the officer added.
“We will interrogate him further to find out more about the loans and commissions that he collected.”
Investigations said that Mukhopadhyay helped Roy obtain ₹10 lakh from the Rashbehari branch of a nationalised bank in March 2024.
He had allegedly taken ₹2 lakh as commission from Roy. Later, he was demanding more money as commission, the police said.
“We are not sure if there were some other agents who had helped Roy,” the officer said.
The police said the family, found dead at their house on Tuesday, had taken a few lakhs of rupees as loans and was under pressure to return them.
Investigators said they found two scribblings on two walls of the house in Kasba’s Haltu Purbapally.
“One mentioned some relatives who were disturbing the family over a property-related dispute, and the other had the names of a few creditors who had allegedly threatened to kidnap the child if they did not repay the loan at the earliest,” said an officer of Kasba police station.