Kolkata: In a rare example of heinous crime, a 19-year-old youth killed his parents, grandmother and younger sister in February at Kaliachak in North Bengal's Malda district. The decomposed bodies were recovered after four months of the incident on Saturday morning.
The exact reason behind the murder is yet to be ascertained, but police suspect that failing to meet the demand of the accused by his parents could have led to the "cold-blooded murder". The youth Mohammad Asif served spiked fruit juice to his parents, grandmother, younger sister and elder brother. He had dumped them into an underground water reservoir adjacent to his house. Though his elder brother Mohammad Arif had managed to save his life and fled to Kolkata, the remaining four died inside the reservoir.
The matter came to light only when Arif returned to Malda on Thursday and lodged a complaint with Kaliachak police station on Friday. Police went to the spot last night and interrogated the brothers. During interrogation, Asif narrated the entire story leaving the police spellbound. The bodies, mostly skeletal remains, were brought out of the water reservoir on Saturday morning in the presence of a magistrate and sent for autopsy. Superintendent of Police Alok Rajoria visited the spot.
On February 28 Asif's father Jawad Ali, mother Ira Bibi, sister Arifa Khatun and grandmother Alekjan Khatun went missing from their house at Kaliachak's Purano 16 Mile area. Since then Asif, who had claimed to be busy in developing an app, used to rarely come out of the house and got online food delivery. Whenever neighbours asked Asif about his family members, he said that they went out of station for a tour and got stuck due the pandemic. "Preliminary investigation revealed that he had put locoplast on their mouths and dumped them into the reservoir when they had fallen unconscious after taking spiked fruit juice," a senior police officer said.
As told to the police by Arif, locoplast on his mouth got loosened as a result he managed to come out of the water reservoir. He immediately fled from the area after a fight with Asif and took shelter in Kolkata. Police, however, also found several discrepancies in Arif's statement and raised the question — why did he not disclose it for the past four months?
Asif's parents always used to meet all his demands starting from buying laptop and expensive mobile phones. They never used to interfere much into his matters as he had once gone missing after passing out Madhyamik examination. Police heard that he had then befooled his parents saying that he was kidnapped. His father used to run a transport business and owns agricultural land. He had named many of his property in favour of Asif, who told his parents that he needed three-year's time to develop the app and also asked a few lakhs from his parents. Police have seized Asif's laptop and mobile phone and also found Rs 1 lakh from his room.
Police are also not rulling out the possibility of Asif's involvement in bitcoin gambling. It could be the reason for which he had asked for Rs 25 to Rs 30 lakh from his parents.
Minister of state for Irrigation Sabina Yeasmin also visited the spot. Psychologist Anuttoma Bandyopadhyay said that such a major incident could have been averted if the family members had taken proactive steps finding any sort of tendency of committing crime in the youth.