Kolkata: A merchant navy officer was arrested from his Barasat apartment in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district for allegedly kidnapping and murdering a 30-year-old woman he met on social media.
On April 22, the Bidhannagar police had recovered a trolley bag with a body inside from a drain in Baguihati. They identified the deceased as Riya Dhar, a resident of Nabagram in West Bengal’s Murshidabad.
After scanning CCTV footage, the Bidhannagar police reached Fortune Heights apartment complex in Barasat on Friday to arrest the suspect, Kaushik Pramanik, and learnt that the Murshidabad police had already arrested Pramanik two days ago on the charges of abducting the same woman whose body was found in the trolley bag.
“He lived alone in a flat in Fortune Heights in Barasat. The two met on social media. The woman was murdered after their relation soured,” a Bidhannagar police station officer said, asking not to be named.
Preliminary investigation revealed that Pramanik is a divorcee while Dhar lived with her husband and two kids in Nabagram in Murshidabad. After Dhar’s husband came to know about her and Pramanik, their relation got strained, following which she moved to Pramanik’s flat in Barasat.
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On the basis of a complaint lodged by Dhar’s husband last month, Murshidabad police had registered a case of abduction against Pramanik. “We arrested Pramanik on Wednesday in connection with an abduction. At that time, we didn’t know that he has murdered the woman. It was only after the woman was identified that we came to know that he is an accused in the murder case which was lodged by Bidhannagar Police,” an officer from Murshidabad police said.
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“Postmortem report revealed that the woman’s death was caused due to asphyxiation. She was probably strangulated. The accused then stuffed the body in the trolley bag. He hired a cab and headed to Deshbandhu Nagar in Baguihati area where he dumped the bag in a drain,” the police officer said.
Bidhannagar police registered a murder case after the woman’s body was found on April 22 morning. “As the adduction case was lodged with Nabagram police we will transfer the case to Nabagram. Murder charges would be added against him,” the officer added.