Four years after Asif Mohammad, then 19, killed four members of his family – parents, sister and grandmother – in the Kaliachak area of Malda district in West Bengal, the trial court on Saturday sentenced him to death, calling it a “rarest of the rare” case.

The investigation, piecing together the accounts of 19 witnesses, found Asif allegedly seeking and utilising methods discovered on the dark web to conceal the bodies within the very walls of his home.

“It is a cold-blooded murder. This case cast a dark shadow on how youths are falling into the trap of mobile phones and technology. He turned a hidden room into a water-filled reservoir of death, using coffins as tools of murder. He was obsessed with gadgets and virtual life, and planned to conceal the bodies by information sourced from the dark web,” said Public Prosecutor Bivas Chatterjee.

The murders took place on February 28, 2021, but an FIR was filed four months later, on June 9, 2021, after Asif’s elder brother, Arif, told the police about the crime.

Arif, then 21, had survived the attack and escaped. He returned to Kaliachak after four months. In his statement to the police and later to the court, Arif had said that on February 28, Asif had spiked soft drinks and made all the family members drink them. Arif said he fell unconscious and awoke to find himself in a water-filled coffin, bound with tape. He saw his other family members in similar coffins, also filled with water. As he struggled, Asif attacked him. During the struggle, Arif managed to escape by grabbing Asif’s hair. He witnessed water pouring into the coffins through pipes in a newly built house. Asif had threatened Arif against disclosing the murders, mentioning CCTV and a potential bomb.

“Arif Mohammad, who survived the attack and was a key eyewitness among the 19 examined,” said the public prosecutor.

Following Arif’s complaint, police exhumed the mummified bodies on June 19, revealing injuries deemed homicidal by the postmortem.

“Sophisticated computer equipment and a large sum of money were found during the investigation. Asif was convicted under sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), and 201 (destruction of evidence). He received the death sentence for murder, 10 years for attempted murder, and 7 years for destruction of evidence,” said Chatterjee.