Unsolved crimes haunt Kolkata detectives
KOLKATA: Is Kolkata Police – once reputed for its efficiency in crime detection and prevention – losing its edge? An increasing number of crimes since the beginning of the year have gone unsolved. Many of the crimes that were cracked are still in an uncertain stage because the key accused are yet to be arrested.
The police’s dip in success rate is all the more glaring because this year there has been a string of particularly gruesome murders and rapes. There were some the city witnessed for the first time – gangrape in a moving car and the possibility of a serial killer stalking teenage girls. Add to those gunfights on the streets, a homemaker shot in a peaceful neighbourhood, a gangwar in rush-hour and sundry abductions and murders. The police have been kept busy but there is little to show by way of success.
The series of undetected crimes started with a daring snatching attempt in a Kasba locality in the south eastern fringes of the city on January 24. Thirty-five-year-old Vidya Desai was playing with her children in front of their house when two bikers sped up and tried to snatch her necklace. The gutsy woman fought back and threw the duo off their bikes. She had almost caught one of them when the goon pulled out a pistol and started shooting, without bothering that the children could also get hit.
The woman was shot in the stomach but still chased the bikers for about 500 metres before collapsing. She is still under treatment and the family is in shock. The anti-robbery squad of Kolkata Police’s famed detective department took up the investigation. Initially, they picked up a couple of youths but didn’t progress any further. Police claimed they found no eyewitness who could provide them with a description of the culprits. A neighbour and another young boy who was passing by the spot provided a detailed description of the snatchers but police could not take any advantage of it. An investigator admitted on Monday that they are still in the dark about the culprits. The goons may still be targeting women, emboldened by the fact that they got away with it.
That very night, the decomposed body of a schoolgirl was found stuffed in a sack and dumped near the Park Circus railway station. The next afternoon, a dead teenage girl was found in a jute bag beside a vat under Dhakuria flyover. The autopsy report confirmed that they were both murdered. But none of them has been identified yet.
Officers of the homicide squad suspect that the murders are linked. There are just too many coincidences to ignore – the sacks were similar, they both had the same logo, both girls were in school uniform, the bodies were dumped barely 5km apart and finally, there was no evidence of sexual assault. But detectives could not make much headway. The DNA profiles of both bodies were prepared for further investigation. Police are waiting for the final DNA report to match both profiles. But there are no leads on the suspects in spite of an eyewitness seeing one of the bodies being dumped from a taxi.
The detective department did a remarkable job in cracking the Park Street rape case but two of the suspects – including the prime accused – are yet to be nabbed. In the dark hours of February 3, the victim had been beaten up, molested and raped inside a car by five men she had met at a night club. The Park Street police refused to take her complaint initially and bungled the investigation. Then, all the suspects had impersonated other club regulars, making identification difficult. But the detective department cracked the seemingly impossible case and nabbed three of the accused in one night. But the alleged rapist and an accomplice are still on the run.
The Park Street case was still hogging front page headlines when on February 11, a businessman was gunned down on a crowded street in Burrabazar. Syamsundar B Popat was shot at the crossing of Canning Street and Kalakar Street. The killer snatched Rs 1.5 lakh from him and his cellphone. Days after the murder, police said they had retrieved CCTV footage from two shops that showed the two gunmen leaving the spot along Laddu Galli which leads to Mechua fruit market.
The police were also hopeful they would gather clues from the missing cellphone but sources said that the assailants did not use the cellphone at all. Popat’s brother Jayees said: “Since then we have met the investigating team several times. We have provided some clues. But it has not progressed.”
Two more murders were added to the long list. Twenty-seven-year-old Sujan Begum alias Baisakhi Biswas was found dead inside her posh Jodhpur Park Garden apartment on March 9. The autopsy confirmed that she was strangled and police suspect her husband Raizul Haque Seikh. But they have not been able to trace him or the couple’s infant son. He was last tracked to Baruipur.
The latest is the murder of 39-year-old Sarmistha Lahiri, who was strangled in her Patuli residence. A former bank employee, Lahiri lived alone. Police claimed to have a prime suspect but have made no headway in the case.
In the last two murders, senior detectives say they have specific clues and will soon nail the suspects. But they admitted that in the remaining cases, they are still in the dark. “We are waiting for some positive clues,” said an officer.
MAJOR CRIMES THIS YEAR & THEIR STATUS
Date Cases Status
Jan 20Animesh Roy, insurance agent, abductedReleased, 5 arrested
Jan 24Vidya Desai shot by biker gang in KasbaUnsolved
Jan 25Teenage girl found in a sack under Dhakuria BridgeUnsolved
Feb 9Woman raped in carArrests 3, absconding 3
Feb 11Trader shot in BurrabazarUnsolved
Feb 12Couple stabbed and robbed at Posta Solved, 2 arrested
Feb 12Man robbed in Burrabazar RajakatraSolved, 2 arrested
March3Woman murdered in Jodhpur Park Garden Unsolved
March 7Woman murdered in Patuli apartment Unsolved
City police to get India’s first attack dog squad
KOLKATA: In around six months, the city police’s Special Task Force (STF) will get an attack dog squad – the first of its kind in the country, though such squads exist in many countries all over the world.
The state home department recently cleared the proposal for raising the attack dog squad that will be used for operations to get at the hardest of criminals in the toughest of situations. “We are following the models that many police forces do in different countries. For us however, it is something new and we will have to go through the operations to see how well it is working,” said an official.
So, pups from different breeds like German shepherd, Rottweiler, Labrador and Doberman were purchased some weeks ago from private breeders and are now being trained by the BSF. “The dogs are now being trained and will be ready in six months. After that, they may be used for specific operations,” said a Kolkata Police official.
Attack dogs are those that are bred, trained and used for attacking a target either on command or on sight. These dogs are used in police and military operations in different parts of the world – including the USA and Russia. At the top level, these elite dogs are expensive, specially trained and have quick and sharp response.
They are trained to chase and injure a target and they undergo the toughest trainings to work even amidst firing and other adverse situations. The dogs are trained to identify situations where humans are in danger, and they lead the way to the target where human beings may not be able to tread.
Also, from the point of view of criminals, they are more shaken by a ferocious animal than a policeman, whom they are mentally more prepared to combat.
These attack dogs are very different from the sniffer dogs that all police forces have – which are primarily used for sniffing out bombs and detect criminals through their power of smell. They are much tamer than the attack dogs which are especially trained to be ferocious.
Students held for school heist
KOLKATA: A commerce graduate and an engineering student teamed up to commit a robbery that foxed police for 10 days. They were caught trying to open a safe with a gas cutter on Sunday .
The duo never got their hands on the booty – Rs 4.5 lakh and $6000 (around Rs 3 lakh) – stolen from a school in Kasba.
Tech student Sabbir Ahmed, 22, and his friend Assadulah, who appeared for a police sub-inspector recruitment exam, have been arrested. A third accomplice, Nafiz Ali, is on the run. Police say Sabbir, who worked as a volunteer at Learium School in Rajdanga, Kasba, planned the robbery.
On February 3, Yakubu Ozdemir, the Kolkata representative of Turkish Cultural Association, which runs the school, complained that a chest full of cash and documents had been stolen.
Police found that on the night of February 2, two youngsters in “expensive clothes” got off a taxi and ordered the guard to open the gates. They spoke in English and said that school director Osman Kazi was coming on an important visit and had sent them in advance. They even called up someone who made a good enough impersonation of the director and asked the guard to let them in. As soon as he unlocked the office, the duo overpowered the guard and fled with the 2ftx2ft iron box.
Police were initially clueless about the miscreants but reaised that the robbers were familiar with the school and the director. They turned their attention to the volunteers the association hires for its Shakespeare Sarani office. Tracking specific clues, they nailed Sabbir, a Beniapukur resident who studies in a top tech college.
He confessed that he knew a lot of money was kept in the chest and roped in friends Nafiz and Asadulla, who are also from Beniapukur. It was Asadulla who took the call and posed as the school director.
Police found the cash chest intact in Sabbir’s house. After robbing it, the trio could not open it and Sabbir and Asadulla were intercepted when they were about to use a gas cutter, say police.
Another bag with body parts found on railway tracks
KOLKATA: Railway police on Tuesday found portions of a human body stuffed in a large polythene bag from the rail tracks at Sealdah station. Similar large black polythene bags stuffed with human body parts was also found at Kalyani late on Monday. Cops have reasons to believe that all the body parts are of the same person.
Around 8.30am on Tuesday, passengers of Dankuni Local, which was standing at platform number 1, first complained of a stench from the tracks. They spotted the black poly bag between platform number 1 and 2 and informed police, who later found decomposed body parts in the bag.
“Portions of chest to thigh of a male person have been found in the bag. The body was probably chopped with a sharp weapon,” said an investigator. Police believe that other body parts, including the severed head, found in three different bags at Kalyani are of the same person who was in his mid-thirties. Investigators suspect the murderer chopped the body and dividing the parts into separate bags and dumped them at different places. Probably, the man was travelling in a train and dropped the bags from a late-night train.
“The case is mysterious and we are in touch with other agencies to crack the puzzle,” said Tapas Bose, superintendent of railway police (Sealdah).
The series of incidents of unidentified bodies being dumped across the city has left the cops puzzled. Earlier on January 24, a decomposed body of a nine-year-old girl packed in a bag was found at Park Circus station. Police are yet to identify the body. A couple from Canning initially claimed the girl as their missing daughter but later their missing kid returned. Railway police collected victim’s DNA profile for future identification.
On the very next day, another body of a teenage girl was recovered inside a jute bag under the Dhakuria bridge. Again, police could proceed little to identify the victim. Based on some ragpickers and local shopowners’ statements, police published a sketch of two suspected persons who reportedly dumped the jute bag from a taxi. Kolkata Police’s homicide squad and railway police started probing the case. After initial investigation, they suspect the killer probably killed the man in an act of vengeance, which led him to chop the victim brutally after killing him. Police are not ruling out involvement of psychopathic killer behind the series of murders either.
KMC asked for night shelter list: City police
KOLKATA: The police letter suggesting that a few Kolkata Municipal Corporation schools, health clinics, community halls and other vacant government land be used as night shelters came after KMC requested the police to help them identify such places to provide vagabonds a safe night stay in keeping with apex court guidelines. This list was prepared in consultation with the local councillors and the KMC borough office-bearers. A separate order was issued on Friday to the police station’s OCs to understand whether KMC officials have any objection to any place suggested in the list.
TOI had reported on the list sent by the commissioner of Kolkata Police to mayor Sovan Chatterjee. It was also reported that KMC’s member mayor-in-council Atin Ghosh had termed the use of health clinics and schools run by KMC as “absurd”.
Reacting to the TOI report, joint commissioner of police (crime) Damayanti Sen said: “Police have no locus standi on the matter. We were asked by the KMC to help them prepare a list of possible places which can be used as night shelters. Accordingly, the divisional DCPs were asked to prepare the list with due consultation with the local KMC office bearers and councillors. The implementing authority is the KMC and the social welfare department. Whether any of these places will ultimately be used for night shelters rests on them. Should they seek our help regarding this, it is our duty to assist them. But we can’t decide on it ourselves.”
On Friday, a fresh order was issued to the respective OCs to go back to the KMC office bearers and understand whether they have any objection to the places mentioned in the list and should they have, it would be further intimated to the KMC. Core to the issue is to identify places where vagabonds can be provided a safe night refuge from 9 pm to 6 am. “The objective was to identify government properties which are not put to use during the night and are well capacitated to accommodate people. Inputs were taken from people who are in charge of these or are in the know,” a senior officer said.
The Kolkata Police already runs several social welfare programmes – one even recognised by the Unicef. The Nabadisha programme now runs across 31 police stations, where street children are educated in police stations. Several NGOs partner Kolkata Police in this effort. The training schedules are during the afternoon and even night, to allow children – in cases even their parents – to be taught.
The other programme which is now gaining applause is Kiran, an effort to train women so that they can sustain on their own. Five Kiran centres are already in operation. These are primarily located in minority areas where women’s going out on work is still considered a taboo.
In addition to their programmes for the elderly, Pronam, the Kolkata Police also run a unique programme with schoolchildren who go on a monthly visit to police stations. The children are taught how police work, how they can make a difference and bring police more closely to them. The Kolkata Police’s social welfare programme is looked after by an additional commissioner of police and runs from the Alipore Bodyguard Lines under an OC, community policing.
In fact, chief minister Mamata Banerjee is tentatively slated to inaugurate one such programme on February 18.
Nigerian ‘kingpin’ arrested in multi-crore online banking fraud
KOLKATA: Beware before clicking a mail sent by any unknown person. You could be a victim of ‘sphygmograph’ – a hi-tech e-fraud – and within days fraudsters may empty your bank account.
On Thursday the anti-bank fraud squad of Kolkata Police, led by Soumya Banerjee, unearthed a racket operated by group of Nigerians. One of the kingpins, Felix Nudubisieigs, has been arrested from Puduchhery, say police.
Investigators say that Felix, who has been in India since 2006, is one of the masterminds of the racket which has swindled crores of rupees from people in the last year alone.
In the past few months Kolkata Police has been receiving peculiar complaints from people that their money has been withdrawn or transferred to some unknown account. Alind Jain was one among the victims. A resident of Moradabad, he said that Rs 40,000 was withdrawn from his account and transferred to an account of private bank at Shakespeare Sarani. He suspected his e-banking password had been compromised but could not say how.
Investigators were stunned when they finally unraveled the modus operandi. The scamsters used to send lucrative mails randomly across the country. The mails could be in different forms. You could get a job offer from a multinational company. Or a lottery or even a greetings. When a recipient clicked on the mail, a Trojan virus would penetrate their system.
It remains dormant when the victim logs out of the mail account. When he logs back in, the virus starts copying every stroke on the keyboard and the details of the mail and sends to the mother server operated by the fraudsters.
Investigators said that soon after getting the copied details, the fraudsters start monitoring the victim’s mail. If he logs into his bank account online to check his balance, the racketeers get every detail, including the password. If the victim’s account balance is lucrative then transfer the money to another account opened in a fictitious name.
The racket was so smart that businessmen were conned into paying directly into the fraud account. For instance, if someone got a mail from his business partner for a payment, the fraudsters would spy on it and use the stolen details to send a fake mail asking that the money be deposited in such and such account.
Police said that the clever fraudsters recruited scores of Indians to open account in fictitious names to conceal the direct involvement of the Nigerians. They asked the recruited youths to open as many accounts in different banks as they could. “The foot soldiers got a cut of the amount transferred to the account. Soon after a few fraudulent transactions, the gang used to ask the account holder to shut it and open another one,” said an officer. The racket generally used routed each fraud transaction through five to six accounts before withdrawing the money.
Investigators have spotted more than 20 such accounts in Tripur, Chennai and other cities in south India.
Police have sealed several accounts containing crores of rupees swindled from different people across the country India and are now looking for the victims. Felix landed in India on a student visa and later joined the fraud racket, said police. “He was produced before a Tripur court on Thursday and will be bring to Kolkata on transit remand,” said joint commissioner of police, crime, Damayanti Sen.
S 24-Parganas police lines shifted from Alipore
KOLKATA: After nine urban police stations from the industrial zone of South 24-Parganas were brought under Kolkata Police, the state police is now restructuring the South 24-Parganas police administration for better policing. As a part of this move, the police lines housing the reserve force of the South 24-Parganas police, is being shifted from Alipore to Sonarpur and Diamond Harbour. At present, there are more than 300 personnel at Alipore Police lines.
The industrial zone of South 24-Parganas does not make sense anymore after more than half of the police stations in it were merged with Kolkata Police. So, the jurisdiction of both the additional SP (industrial) and additional SP (rural) have been restructured. These officers have also been re-designated as additional SP (west) additional SP (east).
The district police headquarters will remain at Alipore till it is shifted to the proposed South 24-Parganas headquarters at Baruipur. But the two zonal headquarters will be at Sonarpur and Diamond Harbour, said a senior state police officer.
The unified police line will be divided into two halves. The Police line (west) will be at K D Mullick Garden at Sonarpur. This will be under additional SP (west), while the police line (east) will be at Diamond Harbour.nearSDPO officewhere the police administration has a huge plot of land at its disposal, said another officerAccording to a senior police officer, it was a strategic mistake to keep the police line at Alipore, when the force is never used there. When Behala, Kasba, Jadavpur was under South-24 Parganas district, it still made some sense. But now, it takes a huge time to reach far away places like Kultoli, Jainanagar, Diamond Harbour, Pathar Pratima after overcoming the traffic chaos in the city.
Both in case of hooch tragedy and Mograhat firing, Reserve Force of South 24-Parganas took an inordinately long time to reach the place of occurrence, so things had gone out of hand. If police lines are there at Sonarpur and Diamond Harbour, they can reach the PO in shortest possible time. It is important for police to reach the PO. Taking into account the weak man-power strength at police station in the distrists, it is important for the reserve force to move to the PO immediately after the incident happens.
In the new structure, Police line (west) will serve areas like Bhangor, Kashipore, Kultoli, Patharpratima, while the police line (east) will serve Diamond Harbour, Sagar, Bishnupur, Budge Budge. Apart from major law and order problem, the reserve force is mainly used for the security of the undertrial accused and convicts during their transportation from the jail to the court and back.
In these two zones there will be two separate control rooms other than the district headquarters control room at Alipore. Senior officers said that this is the first move towards shifting the South 24-Parganas police headquarters from Alipore to Baruipur. People from the farthest corners of the district come all the way to Alipore to get even a minor work done. It is a huge waste of energy and money, an officer said.
Elderly man threatens to jump off 13-storey building
KOLKATA: Police and fire officials rescued a 62-year-old man who had threatened to jump off a 13-storey building at Thakurpur, in the south western fringes of the city, on Wednesday afternoon.
After an hour long drama, police and fire officials rescued an elderly man who climbed up on the top of a 13 storey building and threatening to jump off at Thakurpukur in the south western fringes of the city on Wednesday afternoon.
Police said at around 2.40pm on Wednesday, they received a an SOS call from a woman on 100, asking them to rescue her husband Abhijit. The woman, Chandrima Biswas told police that Abhijit suddenly climbed the top floor of their building (tower eight) at Diamond City complex and threatened to commit suicide by jumping off.
Police rushed to the spot and with a public address system, tried to persuade the 62-year-old. But, he did not give up. While fire brigade officials reached the spot with a hydraulic ladder, the Disaster Management Group of Kolkata Police tried to convince Abhijit. None, however, could succeed. Cops said Abhijit went to the landing of the building’s 13th floor and threatened to jump from the window of the landing he was threatening to jump off.
Fire officials went up to the window with the hydraulic ladder.
Meanwhile Biplab Sen, an interior decorator of the building, went up to where Abhijit was standing. Sen then grabbed him from behind and managed to overpower him.
The building’s residents were, however, unhappy with fire brigade officials. They claimed that the officials had failed to arrange for a net which was essential in such kinds of cases. Manasi Chowdhury, president of the housing complex, said, “We repeatedly told fire officials about the net but they could not arrange it.”
Probe revealed that Abhijit is unemployed and was depressed over some family problem. Out of depression, the man turned violent and tried to kill himself, said an officer. His wife Chandrima confirmed that her husband is suffering from mental sickness.
Senior IAS officer held in Rs 125-cr scam
KOLKATA: The CID arrested additional secretary Debaditya Chakraborty on Wednesday for his alleged involvement in a 125-crore scam, the first time such a senior IAS officer has been arrested in the state. R M Jamir, a retired IAS officer who was the director of a PSU at the centre of the scam, has also been held.
The arrests were confirmed by DIG, CID (operations) K Jayaraman. The two will be produced in court on Thursday, he said. Several agencies, including the detective department of Kolkata Police, were probing the scam for quite some time but had not received permission to arrest the IAS officer , sources said.
Jamir was director general of the West Bengal Essential Commodities Services Corporation (WBECSC) and Chakraborty its managing director. The PSU was entrusted with the export of iron ore to a Chinese firm in a joint venture with Bharat Inmate, a private exporter. In the subsequent fiasco , the PSU suffered a loss of 125 crore.
It lodged a complaint against Bharat Inmate and, after a probe, two employees of the private company – Pratap Biswal and Aman Bansal – were arrested. The detective department submitted a preliminary report to the home department , pointing out that several officials of WBECSC were also involved. The government granted permission to arrest Sambhunath Samanta, a lowerranked official of the PSU, but not Jamir or Chakraborty.
In May 2011, Kolkata Police submitted a chargesheet against Biswal, Bansal, Samanta and Jamir. Jamir, a 1977-batch IAS officer, had retired just before the chargesheet was filed. Chakraborty, a 1976-batch officer, was not named in the chargesheet as he was still in service and the government had not granted permission to prosecute him.
After a change of guard in the state, the case gathered steam. Food and essential services minister Jyotipriya Mullick accused Kolkata Police of hushing up the case to protect some influential officers. After chief minister Mamata Banerjee intervened, the CID took over and, in July 2011, initiated a fresh probe against the Singapore-based owners of the ship that carried the iron ore – Sea Quest Shipping Pvt Limited.
On Wednesday, CID officers called both Jamir and Chakraborty to their headquarters and arrested them. CID officers hinted that they found the involvement of more officials and they could be arrested, too. Chief secretary Samar Ghosh refused to comment .
Girl’s body found in sack at Park Circus
KOLKATA: The decomposed body of a nine-year-old girl, stuffed inside a jute bag, was found in front of the ticket counter of Park Circus railway station early on Tuesday. ‘s ticket booking counter on platform No. 2 early on Tuesday.
Police said the jute bag remained unclaimed for a long time. This sparked suspicion following which the railway police were informed.
Cops from Ballygunge GRP station rushed to the spot and found a decomposed body inside. The initial post-mortem report suggests that a deep head injury probably caused the girl’s death.
The inquest report, however, revealed that the girl was not a victim of any sexual assault. Police are yet to declare if she was murdered. The girl has not yet been identified since there was no document found to provide information on her identity. unidentified as nothing was found that can provide any link to her identity.
Police said that they have initiated a case of unnatural death.
SRP Sealdah Tapas Bose said, “We are trying to trace her identity. After a detailed post-mortem report, it would be clear whether she was murdered or not.”
