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Retired teacher Ganapati Chakraborty spent three decades teaching accounts at Rangpur Zilla School. He spent his final hours confronting two young men who had allegedly 
climbed onto his roof to take drugs – and paid for it, along with his wife, daughter and 12-year-old son, in one of the most disturbing killings Rangpur has seen in years.
Police on Sunday arrested two suspects, Mugdha Das, 23, and Siddhartha Das, 19, in connection with the murders, which drew nationwide horror after the family’s bodies were discovered on Saturday, badly decomposed, inside their home in Kamal Kachna-Machuapara.
Rangpur Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mohammad Abdul Mabud said the pair had confessed to killing the family after Ganapati stopped them using drugs on his roof.
Kotwali police station Officer-in-Charge AKM Nazmul Kader laid out the sequence of events on Sunday afternoon.
How the killings unfolded
According to police, Mugdha and Siddhartha jumped from a neighbouring building onto Ganapati’s roof on Thursday night and were taking yaba when he came upstairs to investigate the noise.
An argument broke out over their presence and drug use, and the two men, fearing exposure, decided to kill him.
Ganapati was strangled with a gamcha wrapped around his shoulder. His wife, Pritilata Chakraborty, hearing him cry out, climbed towards the roof and was strangled with the same cloth on the staircase.
Their daughter, Agami, came looking for her mother next and was killed with a rope pulled so forcefully, the commissioner said, that it broke her jaw and severely injured her eyes; police said it took her four to five minutes to die.
The suspects then went downstairs, where they found 12-year-old Priyam asleep. He knew both men – he was friends with Siddhartha’s younger brother – and police said this familiarity sealed his fate. Fearing he would identify them, the two allegedly strangled him with cloth before pressing a pillow over his face.
Six hours with the bodies
After the killings, the suspects showered in the bathroom used by the boy, ate dates and cucumber from the family’s fridge, and remained in the house for six to seven hours, staying until Friday afternoon.
They waited for the streets to empty during Friday prayers before slipping out over a neighbouring roof, taking gold ornaments with them.
To pass the murders off as robbery, they scattered belongings through the house and submerged two mobile phones in soapy water to destroy any fingerprints.
Unanswered questions
Local rumours that Pritilata and Agami were found unclothed were rejected by OC Nazmul Kader, who said both women were dressed when recovered.
A Rangpur CID official, speaking to the Daily Sun on condition of anonymity, said Pritilata’s clothing had appeared “somewhat disturbed”, and that forensic and DNA tests would be needed to determine the exact circumstances of the deaths, including whether there had been any sexual assault.
Commissioner Mabud said investigators had so far found no evidence that any victim was raped.
The official added that all four victims’ faces were badly disfigured in a manner resembling chemical exposure, though no such substance has yet been found at the scene; forensic tests should clarify the cause.
Police also intend to run DNA tests on the dates and cucumber recovered from the fridge to establish whether anyone besides the two suspects had been inside the house.
Investigators said the pair had bought drugs before the killings from a man named Shimanto, and that neither had any prior criminal record.
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Tracing the suspects
A burned gold bangle at the scene pointed police towards someone with gold-working experience, while other evidence suggested drug use.
Cross-referencing local intelligence on drug users with information from the victims’ relatives led police to Siddhartha, a gold craftsman, and Mugdha, who worked at a fish stall in City Bazar. Both have since confessed, and their DNA samples have been sent for forensic analysis.
Some of the stolen ornaments have been recovered from an abandoned spot behind a temple, based on information the suspects provided.
Commissioner Mabud noted that the men knew the family well, addressing Ganapati as “Sir” and Pritilata as “Kaki”, and that no prior dispute between them had been found.
Discovery
Pritilata’s younger sister, Puja Chakraborty, told police she had last spoken to her sister and niece at 11:26pm on Thursday, in a call lasting almost ten minutes.
A second call came from Pritilata’s phone at 2:40am, which Puja missed while asleep; she was unable to reach the family again.
By Friday evening, with every phone in the household switched off, she went to the house herself, found it locked, and broke through a neighbouring window to look inside. Seeing the rooms in disarray, she alerted police.
Officers entering through the adjoining building found drawers emptied and belongings strewn across the floors. Ganapati’s body lay on the third-floor roof; his wife and daughter were found on the staircase; the youngest, Priyam, was discovered beside a bed.
All four were recovered by 3:30am on Saturday, by which time decomposition had spread a foul odour through the building.
A prior threat
Bishwanath Chakraborty, husband of Ganapati’s niece, told the Daily Sun that Ganapati had mentioned, roughly a month before the killings, that people had demanded money from him – around the time construction stalled on the first floor of his building. Ganapati later said the matter had been resolved, without naming those involved. Police have not confirmed any link between this and the murders.
A murder case has been filed with Kotwali Police Station against unidentified persons by Ganapati’s brother, Gopinath Chakraborty. Commissioner Mabud said the investigation would be completed swiftly, with a charge sheet to follow.
The victims
The family were named as Ganapati Chakraborty Jewel, 65, who retired from teaching last December and had since run a homeopathy chamber at Rangpur Cooperative Market; his wife, Pritilata Chakraborty Bala, 50; their daughter Agami, 25, who had just completed a master’s in English at Carmichael College; and their son Ayush, 12, a Class Five pupil at Rangpur Zilla School.
Teachers at the school boycotted classes in protest and submitted memorandums to the police commissioner and district administration, demanding swift arrests and exemplary punishment.