Aabesh death: Shop owners arrested for selling liquor to underage boys

The police suspect that this might provide a clue in order to find out whether Aabesh Dasgupta was murdered or was it just a mere accident.

Meanwhile, three persons including owners of the liquor shop, Rajesh Saha and Soumojit Saha and an employee of the shop were arrested on charges of selling liquor to the boys who had not attained the legal drinking age of 21 years.

They were arrested following interrogation and footage of the surveillance cameras in the liquor shop had also shown that the teenage boys had bought alcohol from the same shop on Syed Amir Ali Avenue on July 23 at 12.30 pm.

Three of his friends, who were supposed to attend the party along with Aabesh, were interrogated by the investigating officers at Lalbazar on Wednesday. Sources said that during the interrogation the teenage friends of the victim repeated the same thing that they had said earlier. But the police had come to know about a separate WhatsApp group in which only three of them and Aabesh were members.

The police have seized the cell phones of all 15 friends and are trying to retrieve data and photographs that would help the police in their investigation. 

The investigating officers were going through the WhatsApp messages and Facebook messengers of all the friends. Sources said that they found that many photographs and posts in social media had been deleted specially from the cell phones of three friends of Aabesh. The photographs and posts seemed to be deleted after Aabesh’s death.

Two of the three friends, who were interrogated on Wednesday, were the ‘admins’ of the separate WhatsApp group. The police asked the friends the necessity of forming a separate group. It is learnt that the friends told the police that they were closest among all friends and that was the reason behind forming the group. 

 The same three friends and Aabesh were supposed to go attend a surprise party the same night in a five star hotel near EM Bypass. They had planned to go to the surprise party as one of their friends, who is a DJ, had a performance in the hotel. Sources said that the police have also asked the DJ to disclose that night’s plan of the four friends.

It is learnt that the Commissioner of Police Rajeev Kumar himself along with Vishal Garg, joint Commissioner of police (crime) questioned the friends on Wednesday.

When a set of police officers were questioning the friends of the victim at Lalbazar, five officers of the homicide section of the city police’s detective department were busy undertaking investigation at Sunny Park Apartment.

The investigating officers had gone through the duty rosters of the security personnel. They were 

found questioning some security personnel and caretakers of its parking lot. Some residents were 

also being questioned. They went to the apartment at around 11.30 pm and continued their work till 7.30 pm in the evening.

They made rough sketches of the ground floor of the apartment and pointed out in the places where the incident had taken place one after the other starting from gathering of the boys and girls till Aabesh falling on ground with severe injuries.

The police came to know that some of the 24 surveillance cameras installed in the apartment were 

not functioning on the day of the incident. Thus, the police are facing trouble in reconstructing the plot. 

The police would visit the apartment again on Thursday and there is also possibility of taking the victim’s friends there to reconstruct the plot. Dipali Dasgupta, the victim’s grandmother, on Wednesday said that Aabesh told her before leaving for the party on July 23 that he had several things to say to her after returning from the birthday party. “I believe that he was murdered and I expect justice,” she said.

Meanwhile, the incident took a political turn with BJP, CPI(M) and Congress leaders visiting the residence of Aabesh. On Wednesday morning, BJP leader Locket Chowdhury went to the victim’s house. Claiming that she came to meet the victim’s family members as his father had been in touch with Tollywood for many years, Chowdhury said that she would fight till the end for justice.

Again in the evening, Leader of the Opposition Abdul Mannan and CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakraborty too visited the victim’s residence.