Kid strangled in planned murder for cash

Munsifdanga (Purulia), July 23: The Purulia girl whose body was found in her neighbour’s bag yesterday had been strangled by the accused couple who had planned to later pose as kidnappers and extort money from her parents, police said. Malay and Piya Ghosh had confined Tamalika Deogharia, six, in their Munsifdanga house after she went there on Thursday afternoon, Piya is supposed to have told the police during interrogation. Piya said her family needed money as Malay had lost his job in a finance company last year on the charge of stealing Rs 3.7 lakh. Piya, who used to work in the same company, had left the job in November “out of shame for her husband’s act”, the police said. While they were working, they had taken a loan from the company to buy a Maruti Alto car. When Tamalika’s parents, Mathur and Mitali Ghosh, recently told the Ghoshes that they had saved Rs 6 lakh to build a house, the accused planned to kidnap the girl. The Deogharias also have an ancestral home in a nearby village that costs several lakhs. “The Ghoshes hatched a plan to earn some quick money by extorting the Deogharias,” the officer added. A medical examination of Tamalika’s body has revealed strangulation marks on her neck. “We also found bits of peeled-off skin around Tamalika’s nails. This suggests that she had scratched her attacker,” another officer said. Investigators probing the murder said the Ghoshes had “planned to kill Tamalika anyway because she knew them and would have given them away once released”. “The Ghoshes had planned to pose as kidnappers and extort money from the Deogharias later. They got caught before they could fully execute the plan,” an officer said. Tamalika’s body was found stuffed inside a duffel bag hidden under a bed at the Ghoshes’ home yesterday. Several water bottles were kept in front of the bag to conceal it, the police said. Yesterday, a police source had said the bag had been found in the back seat of the Ghoshes’ Alto. The police said that during the search for Tamalika, the Ghoshes had “pretended to be innocent and had even joined the operation for some time”. The police said Piya, who was today remanded in judicial custody, had claimed that Malay killed Tamalika without her knowledge. “She is claiming that Malay killed Tamalika when she had gone outside to get water. She said when she returned, she saw Tamalika lying on the bed with her tongue sticking out. Piya has claimed that she was about to raise the alarm but her husband threatened her. Malay had apparently threatened to put the blame of the murder on Piya,” an officer said. The police, however, said they “did not believe” Piya. “We suspect she is saying this to save her skin,” the officer said. Malay’s father Dilip Ghosh, who lives in an adjoining locality, said his son was “an errant and wicked man”. “He left us after completing his BCom. He hardly visited us,” Dilip said. Malay is in hospital after being beaten up by neighbours when he tried to escape early yesterday with his wife. Mathur, a music teacher, had gone to the Ghoshes’ house on Thursday night in search of his daughter but was told that she was not there.