Son, daughter-in-law kill elderly, hide chopped body parts

Kolkata: In a bizarre incident, the son and daughter-in-law of an elderly person killed him and hid the chopped parts of his body at various locations to distract the police. The incident took place at Panskura in East Midnapore.

The 62-year-old was murdered on January 14 but the matter came to light after 65 days of the incident on Wednesday after some parts of the victim's body were exhumed.

Preliminary investigation revealed that the elderly person, identified as Nikhil Maiti, was stabbed to death by his daughter-in-law when the former attempted to molest her and his body was chopped off when his son returned home. Subsequently, the body parts were hidden at various places.

A police officer said the victim was a resident of Ratrapur at Pingla near Panskura in East Midnapore. In the same house, his son, Subho and his daughter-in-law Barsha used to live and they used to look after their father.

Subho works in a private company and like any other day; he was late in returning home on January 14. Barsha was in the house and she was busy cooking in the kitchen when the victim attempted to molest her.

Barsha initially tried to resist. But failing to save herself, she stabbed her father-in-law. She kept waiting for her husband's return. As soon as Subho returned home at around 9 pm, she narrated the entire incident to him.

In a bid to avoid arrest, Subho chalked out the plan to chop off the body and hide the parts. The next day Subho went to an area near his in-law's house at Panskura Irapur on his bike where he buried the chopped legs and hands.

From Irapur, he went to Ashari in Debra where he left other parts of his father's body on a truck from a neighbouring state.

When locals initiated inquiring about his father, Subho told them that his father had gone missing and lodged a complaint with Pingla police station on January 18.

It was on February 19 that the body parts were exhumed by some farmers at Irapur. They informed the police. The investigating officers suspected it to be body parts of Nikhil.

A few days ago, the police summoned Subho for interrogation but he didn't turn up. So the police started questioning Barsha.

Initially, she had tried to distract the police but finally, she broke down before the interrogation and narrated the entire story. They were subsequently arrested and remanded in the custody of police for nine days.