New Alipore murder case: 2 arrested

Kolkata: The Kolkata Police have cracked the murder case of octogenarian Moloy Mookherjee by arresting the two accused from their residence at Kulpi in South 24 Parganas on the wee hours on Saturday. Mookherjee, a retired engineer was found dead in his Tollygunge Circular Road residence at New Alipore on August 7.

"We have arrested Zakir Hussain and Suraj Mollah, both residents of Uttar Chandanpur village in Kulpi. They had broken into the house with a plan to loot. However, Mookherjee was roused and when he tried to resist the duo, he was throttled and as he fell down on the bed, he was suffocated with a pillow to ensure death," Praveen Tripathy, Deputy Commissioner (South) said.

The two accused are cousin brothers and lived in the neighbourhood slum at Behala Saheb Bagan. They would often steal mangoes from the garden of the victim and was once chased away by the elderly.

An Investigating Officer informed that on the day of the crime, the duo entered by unscrewing the latch of the wooden door bolted from outside on the ground floor drawing room. Facing resistance, they murdered him and decamped with some brass and zinc utensils, a gold ring, two mobile phones and a black suitcase. "They had thought that the suitcase would contain valuables but it only had a few showpieces," an investigating officer said.

The sleuths scanned the CCTV footage in front of a nationalised bank and a well-known sweet shop near the victim's residence and further pursued the leads to nab the duo. Zakir was earlier arrested in a case of snatching under Charu Market police station.