One trolley bag was later fished out of the river by a diver pressed into service by the police
A man was today caught throwing two bags allegedly containing body parts of a woman and her six-year-old daughter into the Ganga.
The man identified as Samaresh Sarkar was caught by his co-passengers in a ferry as he was throwing two trolley bags, which, he told police, contained body parts of a woman, with whom he was allegedly in an illicit relation, and her daughter.
Hoogly SP Praveen Tripathi said Sarkar, the branch manager of PSU bank in Durgapur, was arrested after his co-passengers, suspecting something foul, handed him to the police in Sheoraphuli.
One trolley bag, containing the lower body parts of a woman, was later fished out of the river by a diver pressed into service by the police, he said.
SP Tripathi said Sarkar told the police that Sucheta Chakraborty, a 34-year-old housewife with whom he was in an illicit relationship, had been pressurising him to marry her and would often take money from him.
Sarkar, however, was married and his family stayed at Titagarh near Barrackpore.
When he visited Sucheta at her flat in a housing colony in Durgapur yesterday, where she lived with her daughter after having separated from her husband, they had a heated argument following which she flew into a rage and strangled her daughter Dipanjana to death in front of him, Sarkar alleged.
Sucheta had then stormed into the adjoining room and committed suicide, he claimed.
As he did not want people to know of the incident, Sarkar claimed that he had cut up the two bodies with a sharp weapon, stuffed them in three trolley bags and reached Barrackpore in North 24 Parganas district this morning in a hired car.
SP Tripathi said Sarkar had then boarded a ferry from Barrackpore for Sheoraphuli in Hoogly district on the other side of the river, but could not dispose of the bags.
He had returned to Barrackpore by another ferry and it was during the return trip that he threw the bags mid-river and was caught by co-passengers and handed over to police.
The SP said the incident is being investigated and a police team has been sent to Durgapur.