Parents raise questions over arrest of Mugdha-Siddhartha

Kanu Das, father of Siddhartha Das, and Sena Das, mother of Mugdha Das, family members of the two arrested in the incident of killing four members of the family including retired school teacher Ganapati Chakrabarti in Rangpur city, have raised questions about their sons’ involvement and demanded proper investigation of the incident. They are saying that they cannot believe their sons could commit this incident.

The bodies of former teacher of Zilla School Ganapati Chakrabarti, his wife Preetilata Chakrabarti, class five student son Priyam Chakrabarti and postgraduate student daughter Agami Chakrabarti were recovered from a house in Machuapara of Rangpur city on Saturday night. Afterwards police informed about the arrest of Mugdha Das, 23, of Machuapara area and his maternal cousin’s son Siddhartha Das, 19, at dawn on Sunday. Siddhartha used to work in a jewellery shop of the city and Mugdha used to work in a fish shop of City Bazar. According to the police version they gave confessional statements under section 164 in court on Sunday.

After the arrest of the two accused the previous day Mohammad Abdul Mabud, Commissioner of Rangpur Metropolitan Police, had told journalists that Siddhartha and Mugdha were arrested by conducting a raid at dawn on Sunday. One of them sensing the raid of the law enforcement agency fled and was hiding in the mulberry garden of the nearby Resham Development Board, later he was arrested from the Dakhiganj crematorium area beside the mulberry garden. Citing the primary interrogation of the arrested the law enforcement agency informed that after the murder the killers had consumed yaba sitting in that building and such evidence was also found.

Kanu Das, father of the arrested Siddhartha Das, told journalists at his house on Monday that they were also present there at the time of recovery of the bodies that night. In the deep night police came and asked whose houses were the surrounding ones, later asked about son Mugdha and told to call him. Mugdha was then sleeping at his brother’s house. Kanu Das went there with the police and woke up his son from sleep. Police asked him whether he knew Mugdha; at that time there was a yellowish coloured ganji on the son’s body, he had slept wearing that and went with the police wearing that. Afterwards police went to Mugdha’s house taking Siddhartha. About an hour after returning to his own house Kanu Das learnt that police had arrested his son and he was informed that he had committed the murder after consuming yaba.

Kanu Das said, “My son was not addicted. I have never seen anything like this any day. If it happens for some reason, how else can I say. Can anyone say who consumes addiction when? Who does not want his son to be well. There is no report of theft or such things of my son. He is a cheerful boy. He used to play with the younger ones. You go to the area and ask. On Thursday night after having food I told the son to go to sleep. Then the son said, I will stay with Siddhartha. The son has a friend. Siddhartha has also stayed a lot at my house. He stays going to his house. The two of them have grown up together. There is no restriction on staying together.” He further said, “If I had known the son had committed murder I would have been panicked from the beginning. Then how would I have had food or stayed at home on Friday.”

Sena Das, mother of the arrested Mugdha Das, has expressed similar doubt. She said, “My son used to go to work regularly, come home. My son was not so bad. As a mother I can understand something. But now how what has happened that I cannot understand.” When asked whether the son could commit this incident Sena Das said, “The two sons are not capable. Or whether there is someone else behind this, that should be seen by proper investigation. If the son has done this, then he should get proper punishment. And if my son is not guilty, then he should be released. Killing not one or two but four people. How the two boys did it, that is the question.”

These questions of the families of the two arrested have come to the front at a time when several more questions are already being discussed on social media over the investigation of this case. Among these the main one is the question raised over the match of the shirt on the body of one of the detained persons with the shirt on the body of Sanatan Chakrabarti, Deputy Police Commissioner of Rangpur Detective Police, at the spot, about which he himself has told the media that it is a shirt of a common brand and only a coincidental match. Besides, inconsistency has also been found in some parts (such as over the information of jaw fracture) between the statement of the post-mortem doctor and the primary briefing of the police commissioner. None of these questions has yet got final resolution, and police is saying that after getting the post-mortem report and the result of the CID lab in hand they are preparing to submit the charge sheet quickly.