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Avik Ghosh at Alipore court. (Bishwarup Dutta) |
Avik Ghosh got wife Mausumi killed because he was planning to marry a third time and she was refusing to divorce him, police said on Sunday.
The sleuths also claimed that Avik, who was picked up from Bihar’s Munger on Saturday, had planned to pay the assassins with the money he hoped he would get as the sole nominee of a life insurance policy he had taken out on her.
Mausumi, who left behind a two-year-old son and an eight-month-old daughter, was killed in her in-laws’ Oxytown house on September 27. The assassins also killed her maid Parul to ensure there was “no witness”.
Avik, 42, had married Mausumi in 2006 after divorcing his first wife. “We are sure that he wanted to marry a third time and got his wife killed as she had refused to agree to a divorce,” said an officer.
“Avik had been accused of torturing his first wife. Even Mausumi had lodged a torture complaint against him.”
A few months before the murder, Avik had bought an insurance policy for Mausumi with himself as the sole nominee. “We have come to know that he had planned to pay the killers with the money he would get from the policy,” the officer added.
Avik allegedly hired Somnath Tanti, who had worked as a mason with his father in the Ghosh house, for Rs 5 lakh to kill Mausumi. Tanti got Safique Ahmed Khan and Sadaf Parvez to help him. The trio were picked up from Thakurpukur on Friday.
“Avik had handed over an account-payee cheque for Rs 2.5 lakh to Tanti as an advance. He had promised to pay the rest after the murder but kept delaying the payment. The killers then withdrew Rs 55,000 and Rs 8,000 from Avik’s bank accounts by forging his signature,” the officer said.
Among the articles that went missing from the Oxytown house after the murder was a cheque book of Avik.
He lodged a complaint on November 1 alleging that his account had been hacked. The bank’s CCTV footage apparently showed Tanti encashing the forged cheques.
“Avik had spoken with Tanti for 33 minutes two days before the murder. He later asked Tanti not to call him on his cellphone,” said the officer.
The engineer husband, charged with murder and criminal conspiracy, was produced in an Alipore court on Sunday and remanded in police custody till December 10.
“We will keep questioning him to know who others were involved in the act,” said Murli Dhar, the additional superintendent of police (industrial), South 24-Parganas.
https://www.telegraphindia.com/1101129/jsp/calcutta/story_13232657.jsp
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