Three days after a DU assistant professor was found dead at her residence in east Delhi, police on Sunday arrested a couple from West Bengal and apprehended their 13-year-old son, unravelling a conspiracy to kill the 45-year-old over a dispute regarding an ancestral property she owned in the eastern state.
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The suspect family were tenants in the property in West Bengal’s Bardhaman that the professor inherited from her grandmother. Investigators revealed they travelled 1,400km by train to Delhi to execute the murder on June 3.
Officials said the three suspects were held on Sunday morning in Bardhaman, and the couple will be produced before a city court on Monday. Their son will be produced before a Juvenile Justice Board (JJB), said officials, adding that they would request the board’s permission to bring the boy to Delhi. “If the board turns down our request, we will ask it to send the boy to a local correctional home for boys,” said a police officer.
On the afternoon of June 4, the body of the assistant professor was found at her locked sixth-floor flat in a high-rise residential apartment in Vasundhara Enclave after her sister informed police that she was not answering her phone. Locks were broken, and the body was found in the drawing room near the sofa with severe injuries to her head and face, as well as slit wrists, said officers aware of the case. Special commissioner of police (law and order, zone-1) Devesh Chandra Srivastava said the accused conspired to kill the professor and came to Delhi prepared.
Deputy commissioner of police (east) Rajiv Kumar said the victim had rented the Bardhaman house to the couple in 2023 for ₹10,000 per month. “Around a year ago, the couple offered to buy the house, but the professor refused and asked them to vacate the property because she did not want to sell her grandmother’s house,” said the DCP.
“The couple, however, did not vacate the house, claiming they spent ₹1.5 lakh on its repair and renovation. The dispute escalated, and the assistant professor gave the couple a final warning, following which they conspired to kill her,” Kumar added.
According to investigators, the couple had planned the murder a week before the crime. They boarded a train from Bardhaman on June 2 and arrived in Delhi the following day, carrying a pestle and a razor (ustara). They reached the professor’s sixth-floor flat around 4.15pm on June 3. Investigators said the couple brought their minor son to mislead police and avoid suspicion. They also carried forged Aadhaar cards, which they used to check into a guest house in Dallupura near Vasundhara Enclave.
“On June 3, the three took a cab from the guest house, reached the professor’s society, and entered the premises wearing masks. The man even wore a cap. They reached the flat using the staircase and lifts, executed the crime, and returned in the same cab that was waiting outside,” said DCP Kumar. “Following the murder, they left for the Anand Vihar railway station in the same cab as planned. From there, they took an auto-rickshaw to the New Delhi railway station and boarded the Poorva Express at 5.40pm. They reached Bardhaman the following day, June 4,” he added.
Joint commissioner of police (eastern range) AK Singla said the couple and their son gained friendly entry to the professor’s flat because she knew them. They told her they had come to discuss the property dispute.
“The couple claims that they first tried to convince the professor not to evict them and to accept their offer of buying the property. However, she denied and asked them to leave. Soon after, the couple attacked her head with the pestle and slit her wrists with the razor. After the murder they changed their clothes, locked the flat from outside, and left. Everything happened within 15 minutes,” Singla said.
To crack the case, investigators analysed CCTV cameras in and around the society, focusing on 13 people who had entered and exited around the time of the crime. A couple and a minor boy with covered faces were spotted moving through the building using both stairs and lifts, exiting in different clothes. Further technical and CCTV analysis established that the accused had stayed at the Dallupura guest house before the offence.
Investigators traced two Aadhaar cards from guest house records and placed linked mobile numbers under electronic surveillance. “The investigation revealed that the accused used Aadhaar credentials belonging to unrelated persons to conceal their identities and evade detection,” the DCP said. The victim’s family members flagged the Bardhaman property dispute, helping identify the suspects. The arrested man runs a sanitary shop while his wife is a homemaker.
The victim’s phone, the razor used in the crime, a backpack, clothes and cap used by the suspects along with the train tickets were seized. Police are trying to recover the pestle.
