'Timid' man who chatted more with female colleagues: Meet Samaresh Sarkar, who murdered his lover

‘That oh-no feeling, again’, sighs this Sunday’s Telegraph front-page, in giant fonts. What had pushed the leading West Bengal daily into this bout of melancholy? The horrifying realisation that Bengalis (or people married to Bengalis) can be criminals too. Right on top of the page was a panel with mug shots of Bengalis who have been embroiled recently in cases of murders, unnatural deaths and fraud. The latest case is the one that involves a bank manager, who allegedly murdered his lover and her daughter. Here’s all that we know about the murder case. - Samaresh Sarkar was travelling across the Hooghly on a boat from Barrackpore to Seoraphuli in Kolkata’s suburbs, when his co-passengers noticed that he was throwing huge suitcases into the river. According to The Telegraph, his suspicious co-passengers asked him what the bags contained, to which Sarkar explained that he worked in a bank and was disposing of useless paper from work. It was a peculiar excuse and not surprisingly didn’t convince his co-passengers on the boat. They refused to let Sarkar go when the boat reached Seoraphuli and informed the police. - Apart from the absurd move to throw suitcases into the river under the watch of dozens of people, the police can’t ascertain what the murder weapon was yet. A kitchen knife and a chopper have been recovered, but the police are unsure whether two bodies could be chopped up with them. [caption id=“attachment_2415112” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Image used for representational purposes only. AFP.[/caption] - Sarkar (45) was allegedly in a relationship with a 26-year-old woman called Sucheta. The woman had a five-year-old daughter. The woman was a resident of Durgapur, where Sarkar worked with the Central Bank of India. According to media reports, Sarkar confessed to the police that the woman was insisting that they get married, which pushed him to the edge. The woman was estranged from her husband while Sarkar had a wife and family in Titagarh whom he usually visited on weekends. - The Telegraph reports, “The two trolley bags in which the woman’s body parts were found were among the three Sarkar had allegedly bought about a week ago. He had apparently told the woman after buying the bags that he was planning a Puja vacation with her and her five-year-old daughter.” The child’s body washed ashore in one of the bags, whereas the other bags were recovered by divers deployed by the police. - Sarkar’s wife told reporters that she had spoken several times on Friday, the day the murder allegedly took place. They even spoke about attending their son’s parent-teacher meeting. “I called him up on Saturday morning to ask him whether he would attend the meeting. But his phone was switched off. I thought he was busy with office work,’ Utsa Sarkar told The Telegraph. - Sarkar had initially denied murdering the duo. He had said that Sucheta had killed her daughter and then slit her own throat. He said that he cut the bodies up and tried to get rid of them as he feared that the police might hold him guilty for murder. - According to a report on The Times of India, Sarkar’s colleagues were shocked at the turn of events. They described him as a ‘shy and introvert’ man. However, they complained that while Sarkar was not ‘close’ to his male colleagues, he spent a lot of time interacting with women colleagues. “He avoided men but he was close to female colleagues. He was often seen chatting with them for long. Sarkar would also pay more attention to women customers,” a colleague told TOI. - Not just his colleagues, several other acquaintances seems to have been left gobsmacked by Sarkar’s murderous streak. His landlady told reporters that he was a nice man who never created any trouble and the local municipality chairman said that he knew Sarkar to be a ’timid’ man and never imagined he could murder anyone.