Homemaker murdered, ornaments looted

Kolkata: A 54-year-old homemaker was found brutally murdered under mysterious circumstances at her Birati home in Dum Dum on Monday morning. Her son was found lying in a semi-conscious state in an adjoining room when the woman's body was recovered. The gold ornaments the victim was wearing are missing.
The deceased has been identified as Kabita Mukherjee.He husband Pradip, a doctor associated with an ayurvedic medical college and hospital in Kolkata, first noticed her body on Monday morning. Her body was found gagged and lying in a pool of blood on the bed of the ground-floor room of their three-storey building. A deep injury mark was found on her head while another cut mark was found around her neck. Police also seized a blood-stained pair of tongs from the room.
"So far it seems to be a case of robbery and murder, but we are probing if the workers engaged in construction activities on the second floor are involved," said police.
The couple's 30-year-old son Pratap, who works in a book-publishing company in Kolkata, reportedly told police that he suspect somebody had sprayed sleep-inducing drugs in his room on Sunday night. Police suspect the assailants, who first gagged and tied the woman, strangled her to death and later smashed her head with a hard substance to loot the valuables..
"The killers fled with only some gold ornaments that the victim was wearing. We are also probing if more valuables are missing from her room. Though some household articles were found lying on the floor, the wardrobe and the valuables inside its locker were found to be intact. A pair of bangles and earrings the victim was wearing are missing," said Nirupam Ghosh, OC of Nimta police station adding that her son who had initially felt drowsy was later being questioned.
Pradip, who was on night-duty on Sunday, returned home on Monday morning and found that the collapsible gate was broken. Later he found his wife's body lying on her bed in the ground-floor room. He raised an alarm and the neaighbours rushed in. They also went to the adjacent room where Pratap was sleeping. "We knocked on the door repeatedly, but he didn't respond. We then broke into the room to find him lying on his bed in a semi-conscious state," said a local.
"We suspect that the assailants broke in through the collapsible gate and then prised open the door of the room where she was sleeping. The miscreants brutally killed him while my wife tried to resist them from looting her gold ornaments. After regaining his consciousness, my son was still feeling heavy drowsy as he couldn't talk properly," said the victim's husband.
After being informed a police team led by OC, Nimta PS rushed to the spot to recover the body and sent it for an autopsy.
Police later took her son Pratap to Nimta police station for interrogation.
After being informed the North Dum Dum MLA Tanmoy Bhattacharya also rushed to the spot and spoke to the victim's family members. "It is an extreme horrific that a housewife was brutally murdered in a crowded locality as panic gripped the others locals highly. Police should be more active and we have demanded immediate arrest of the culprits," he said.
According to a police sources, the cops are also investigating whether some workers engaged in a construction work on the second floor of the Mukherjee house were involved in her murder.