Three arrested for abetting suicide of Barrackpore Municipality Vice-Chairman

Kolkata, Nov 20 (IANS) Three persons, including two women, have been arrested by Barrackpore Police Commissionerate in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district on charges of abetting the suicide of Trinamool Congress leader and the Vice-Chairman of local urban body Satyajit Bandopadhyay, an official said on Wednesday.

Bandhopadhyay's body was recovered in hanging condition from the attic of his rented accommodation on the morning of November 16.

The three persons have been identified as Jayashri Das, and husband-and-wife Subhojit Biswas and Shukla Biswas.

Sources from the Barrackpore Police Commissionerate said that the three persons have been arrested based on the suicide note recovered from near the hanging body of Bandopadhyay as well as on the basis of the complaints registered by his family members.

It is learnt that the deceased leader named a total of four persons in the suicide note, which included the three who have been arrested. As per the contents of the suicide note, the accused couple had extorted a few lakhs of rupees from Bandopadhyay by virtue of a fake video. Accordingly, the local police interrogated all four of them and finally on the basis of the findings in the questioning, three of them were arrested.

The Trinamool leader's family members also complained to the police that he had been blackmailed for quite some time on the basis of a fake video. The family said that Bandhopadhyay was missing for two days before he came back home on the night of November 15. After coming back home, he did not interact with his family members or reveal the reason why he went missing for two days. The very next morning, his hanging body was discovered.

Barrackpore Municipality Chairman Moloy Ghosh had claimed that there was nothing political about the tragedy. "All we want is that the police investigate the truth and ensure that anyone responsible for that tragedy is punished," he said.

Following the discovery of Bandopadhyay's death on Saturday, Ghosh said that he met Bandopadhyay last on Thursday at a meeting of the municipality and "did not find anything unnatural in his behaviour".

--IANS

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