RAW official planned murders: Cops

NEW DELHI: Ananya Chakraborty was a member of the local Durga Puja committee. He never spoke about his work but was affable and interacted with neighbours quite warmly. No one ever suspected that anything was amiss or that beneath that calm exterior there could be the makings of a huge tragedy.
The neighbourhood was shocked to hear about the brutal way in which he is suspected to have ended the lives of his family members before committing suicide.
"They were friendly and warm but reserved about their lives. Their children were bright and spoke mostly about studies when they met our children. Their son studied in Class XI and the daughter in Class VII. We never thought the couple had a troubled marriage," said a neighbour.
"They were so lively when we met them socially. They participated in all functions of the colony. Jayashree even taught the children dance for Durga Puja last year. She was teaching music and dance at a school," recalled another neighbour.
The cops investigating the case were reminded of the death of a deputy director in the defence ministry and his wife, a classical dancer, in mysterious circumstances at their home at Hudco Place, south Delhi, in March, 2012. The bureaucrat had burnt his wife to death before setting himself on fire, police had concluded.
The investigators believe that Chakraborty planned the murders as the front and balcony doors had been locked, power switched off from the mains and the landline wires snapped. Initial questioning of the family members of the couple has revealed that that they often fought and were seen engaged in a heated argument at a wedding recently.
"A family member told us that Ananya had stopped his wife from visiting her parents," a source said. Cops are trying to ascertain if Jayashree had filed a complaint against her husband as neighbours said police had come to their home on Thursday.
"We suspect Ananya first went to his son's room as he was sleeping (on his stomach) alone and hit him behind his head with the hammer and then slit his throat. He latched the door from outside and then went to the other room where he hit his wife and daughter on their heads and face and then cut their throats with a coconut chopper. The two were found to have been dragged below the bed," a senior investigator, present at the crime scene throughout, said. Ananya, sources said, then is believed to have walked to the drawing room where he removed a table and used a three-legged stool to hang himself from the ceiling fan.