E-Paper
Driver sacked for theft in 2018 arrested for murder of 91-yr-old Kolkata woman
The driver, who came to visit the woman on Monday, is suspected to have hidden inside the house and killed her around midnight. He is seen leaving the apartment block early on Tuesday morning.
KOLKATA: Renuka Chaudhury, 91, found dead by her son in their south Kolkata apartment was killed by the family’s driver sacked in 2018 on suspicion of theft, said police officers involved in the probe after arresting the man within hours of the crime.
Renuka Chaudhury was found dead by her son in her ninth-floor apartment in Ganga Yamuna residential complex in south Kolkata’s affluent locality of Shakespeare Sarani on Tuesday morning. The jewellery she was wearing was found missing when her son found her dead.
The murder suspect was arrested from Dankuni in Hooghly district on Tuesday night. He was identified as the family’s ex-employee, Dudhkumar Dhal. Scrutiny of footage captured on security cameras installed inside the complex showed Dhal leaving the premises in the early hours of Tuesday. It is suspected that he scaled the boundary wall at the rear of the building, police said.
Renuka Chowdhury used to live with her son, Abhay Chaudhury, who is a chartered accountant and a bachelor.
Post mortem examination indicated that the nonagenarian was smothered around midnight on Monday. There were stains of blood in her nostrils and mouth, said a police officer who did not want to be named.
Dhal worked as a driver for the family, and was sacked in 2018 on suspicion of theft, Abhay Chaudhury told the police.
“Dhal came to our apartment on Sunday and wanted to meet my mother, apparently to exchange pleasantries. He said he thought of visiting us as he had come to Kolkata. He came again on Monday morning,” Abhay Chaudhury told the media.
“I left the apartment on Monday morning for a meeting. There was no one around when I returned. I had my dinner and went to bed. I suspect that Dhal was hiding inside the house,” said Chaudhury.
The investigators, too, suspect that Dhal did not leave the apartment on Monday and was hiding somewhere inside Renuka Chaudhury’s bedroom.
He was remanded in police custody for interrogation when he was produced before a Kolkata court on Wednesday afternoon.
Joint commissioner of police (crime) Murlidhar Sharma and deputy commissioner of police (south division) Akash Magharia visited the crime scene. “The investigation is on,” Magharia told the media.
