82-yr-old killed in suspected robbery bid in New Alipore

An 82-year-old man was murdered inside his house in New Alipore in South Kolkata on Sunday.

Police said the body of the victim, Malay Mukhopadhyay, was found inside his room in the ground floor of his house.

The domestic help, who was engaged to take care of the victim, found the body with several injury marks lying on the bed in his room.

Police said the domestic help was sleeping in a corridor just adjacent to the victim's room. At around 6.20 am she entered the victim's room to call him like any other day but found the victim's blood-spattered body with valuables strewn all over the floor.

The victim's son and daughter-in-law were in their first floor room. The domestic help ran to them after seeing the body and informed the victim's son.

Policemen from New Alipore Police Station went to the spot. Later, officers from the Homicide Section of the city police's detective department also went to the place of occurrence. Sniffer dogs were also deployed to ascertain from which direction the accused had entered and left after committing the crime. Senior police officers including the Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Praveen Tripathi also visited the spot.

The police sent the body for an autopsy and initiated a probe in this connection. A police officer said that they found a portion of a grille in the first floor of the two-storeyed house broken.

Police suspect that the miscreants had attempted to enter the house by breaking the grille but they had failed to enter as they could not make the gap between the iron grilles wider. Later, they went to the back of the house and entered the building by breaking the lock of a door.

Neither the victim's son and daughter-in-law nor the domestic help had heard any sound when the accused had entered the house and murdered the octogenarian.

Though valuables were found strewn all over on the bed and floor of the house, police initially didn't find anything apart from a suitcase missing from the house.

So the police are yet to ascertain the exact reason behind the murder. The police initiated interrogating the domestic help. The police have also spoken to the victim's son and his daughter-in-law.

Aroop Biswas, the state Youth Services and Sports minister, went to the spot and spoke to the victim's family members. He said that he knew the family members and extended his condolences.