Police arrest two in Bentinck Street murder case

Kolkata, Feb 24 (UNI) In a breakthrough in the Bentinck Street murder case within two weeks, police today arrested two youths and recovered cash and jewellary from them.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Deputy Department) Gyanwant Singh said here today, that they had arrested two youths--Santosh Yadav and Pradip Jha--in relation to the murder of Arjun Yadav in Bentinck Street two weeks back.'' While Santosh was nabbed from Jayantipur at around 2330 hours while he was trying to escape into Bangladesh through Petrapole with the help of a pimp, Pradip was nabbed from Salt Lake 226 route bus stand last night when he tried to escape as a helper of a bus, Mr Singh said.

They were detained and being interrogated. Today they admitted to have murdered their freind Arjun and were arrested, he said.

Santosh said he had first got Arjun intexicated at Sonagachi, the red light area in North Kolkata, and then took him to the Bentinck Street home and strangled him to death and then also slit his throat with a sharp weapon.

The postmortem report confirmed the cause of death.

Santosh said the murder was committed in an attempt to become the 'babu' (patron) of a prostitute. Pradip, who was the babu of a prostitute, was threatened by the presence of Arjun and thus committed the crime.

However, police felt that money was the motive behind the murder.

The duo had ransacked the house for some booty and then left with a small safe, which had 23 silver coins dated between 1805 and 1835.

out of them, 16 and Rs 15,000 cash, were recovered from Pradip.

The murder took place at 30 Bentinck Street at M/s Sarkar Coils premises. The victim was around 25 years and the two offenders were also around the same age, police said.

UNI