Kolkata: After 144-hour search, Tangra youth's body found in canal
Times of India | 22 March 2023
KOLKATA: Almost 18 days after the murder of a 30-year-old Tangra youth, allegedly by one his friends and his family members, the body of the victim - Jhunnu Rana - was finally recovered from the canal near Bamanghata wooden bridge under Kolkata Leather Complex police station area. The search was launched 144 hours earlier.
The search for the murder weapon - a hammer - continues at a pond located in the Tiljala area. On Monday, cops had recovered the victim's clothes based on an eyewitness account from a person who actually saw the accused dump the body in the canal.
"The body was recovered from a blue plastic drum, which had got stuck inside a thick vegetation of water hyacinths. The place of recovery is about eight km away, downstream, from the spot where the body was initially disposed of in the canal close to Ambedkar Bridge. The operation was a complicated one and involved searching the water hyacinths. At times, dredging was the only way out and hence it took a bit of time.
Though the body was in highly decomposed state, it was identified by his relatives from a tattoo on his right arm. The body was sent for post-mortem to NRS Hospital where the autopsy surgeon found multiple lacerated injuries on his head," said joint CP (Crime) Sankha Subhra Chakrabarty.
To remove the huge vegetation of water hyacinths in the Bamanghata area and to conduct search operations, Kolkata Police had taken help from the state irrigation department who was successful in locating the body, putting in 14 hours of search every day for the past five days.
The police, meanwhile, said that the accused Golam Rabbani (25) and his wife Noor Ayesha (23) stuck to their claims that it was Ayesha who had hit Jhunnu with a hammer. "They insist that Jhunnu was trying to establish a physical relationship with Ayesha and that she was forced to take such a step.
However, given the planning involved in the murder, we still have doubts. We will establish the motive after further investigations," said Chakrabarty. The Rana family insisted that their son was having problems with the local parking mafia.