Two migrant workers held for techie’s murder

Suspects identified as construction workers from West Bengal; hunt on for others

On its second day investigating the murder of a TCS employee in SIPCOT IT Park, CB-CID officials arrested two persons, both from West Bengal, on Tuesday. One or more suspects are reported to have fled the city.

At a press briefing at the CB-CID headquarters here on Tuesday, Mahesh Kumar Agarwal, inspector-general, identified the arrested as Uttam Mandal (24) and Ram Mandal (21), both from West Bengal, working in the construction industry here for the past eight months.

“The construction workers had sexually assaulted and robbed [the woman] on the night of February 13 of her credit card and mobile phone. Then, they sliced her throat and left her to bleed to death in the bushes,” the IG said.

According to IG north zone K.N. Manjunatha, who spoke at the press meet, the suspects intercepted the victim near her office while she was walking home, carried her into the bushes and killed her.

The same night, Uttam Mandal, masking his face, went to an Indian bank ATM kiosk in the area and attempted to withdraw money using the victim’s Standard Chartered card.

This was caught on the CCTV camera installed in the kiosk. The following day, the suspects made a purchase using the card at a garment shop.

A CB-CID team making enquiries with construction workers in the IT Park area zeroed in on Uttam and Ram on Tuesday, the investigators said. The murder weapon and the victim’s mobile phone have, however, not been recovered.

A special team has rushed to West Bengal to nab the other suspects.

The notable contradiction between the police version and the statements provided by the doctors who performed the post-mortem was the issue of sexual assault.

While the latter had said earlier that there was no sexual assault, CB-CID officials said there was definite sexual assault, but that they could say if the woman had been raped after the results of the vaginal swabs are ready.

(The victim had been identified earlier. However, since there are allegations of sexual assault and suspicion of rape, the victim is not being named here.)