'Elderly woman was drowned to death'

Kolkata: Twenty hours after 60-year-old Sunanda Ganguly's body was found in the courtyard of her Bhowanipore house with her face in the gutter, police initiated a murder case based on preliminary post-mortem report, autopsy surgeon's report and forensic opinion.
Police are now certain that Ganguly was attacked, thus buttressing claims from locals of Bhowanipore's Bakulbagan area that the senior citizen's death was homicidal in nature.The murder case has been registered on a suo-motu basis.
According to sources, the autopsy surgeon has ruled that she drowned. an ante-mortem drowning death. "It is now clear that before drowning, she was alive. That took us to the next point - why would she drown? The place where we found the body was a 1.5 feet by 1.5 feet sanitary gutter with a water level of less than 4 feet. She could have never gone there to remove the accumulated water. This made us suspect that she was forced into that position," explained an officer. However, he ruled out that the victim had developed hematoma anywhere in her body.
The police suspicion found further credence when the autopsy revealed bruises on her head and shoulder. There was water and traces of mud in her trachea that leads to the lungs. Police suspect that the body was forced into the gutter after death. A forensic team along with detective department visited the place on Tuesday. "We are looking for signs of struggle that the accused must have had with her attacker," a source said.
Investigators feel that someone who had access to the woman did the job. "That person, in all likelihood, was known to her. She would not otherwise trusted someone straight in to her courtyard especially since she feared for her life. This person, in all probability, had hit her and though that she had passed away. That person had dragged her towards the gutter to ensure her death and make it look like pass off the incident as an accident. She was not dead until she fell inside the gutter," said a source, adding the autopsy finally said that circumstantial evidence would prove if it was a homicide or murder. "At this point, all circumstantial evidence point to murder," said the officer.
The murder, say sources, might have taken place on Sunday morning itself. "The exact time of death will become clear in the final post-mortem report. But her call records revealed that she did not pick up her phone after 9am on Sunday," said a police officer.
Police said they have been finally able to track Ganguly's husband Buddhadeb in Guwahati. Police have asked him to join investigations immediately though it does seem he was not in Kolkata on the day of the incident. Sleuths said that they are preparing a list of everyone who had access to the Ganguly residence and are putting them on technical surveillance.
Police are not ruling out the promoter's hand in the incident as of now, and may take the promoter's statement soon. "It remains a fact that the woman had lodged a kidnapping case against him. He will be part of our probe," said a detective department official.
The probe has also revealed some startling facts about how the victim conducted herself at Bakulbagan.
"She was very generous to kids. She used to visit the residence of labourers and coax them to allow their children to pick up education at her school Chetona. Several of these men, thus, had access to the house," said police.
However, it was this same woman who rarely mixed with a section of her neighbours. "She had turned up at the Bhowanipore police station complaining how club members were trying to light up her house during Durga puja without her consent. She had been garnering a lot of bad vibes in the area of late due to some of her activities. The fact that she had turned devotional and had opened a temple inside her residence meant that her circle of both people who revered and those who disliked her are a lot. Hence, our ambit of investigation has been widened," concluded the source.