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Seoraphuli: A bank manager posted in Durgapur who had allegedly killed a woman and her five-year-old daughter packed their body parts into four bags and threw them into the Hooghly river while travelling in a boat this morning.

When suspicious co-passengers asked him why he was throwing the bags, Samaresh Sarkar told them he was a bank employee and the bag contained waste papers from office. Not convinced, one of the passengers called up the Seoraphuli police outpost.

When the boat reached the ferry ghat at Seoraphuli, other passengers didn’t allow Sarkar to leave and waited till the police arrived. Sarkar was taken to the police outpost where he apparently said during interrogation that the bags contained the body parts of the woman, with whom he was allegedly having an affair, and her daughter.

Sarkar had taken a morning train from Durgapur and got off at Liluah. He took another train from Liluah and got off at Seoraphuli. At Seoraphuli, he took a boat and crossed the river to Barrackpore. While getting off, the handle of one of the trolleys broke. Sarkar then decided to come back to Seoraphuli in the same boat. It was during the return journey that he threw the bags into the river.

Sarkar, 45, the manager (operations) of Central Bank of India’s branch in Durgapur, told the police that he had got into a relationship with the woman.

"He told us.... the woman was pressuring him to marry her," a police officer said.

Sarkar is married and his wife and two daughters live in Titagarh. But he has been posted in Durgapur for three years. The murdered woman, too, was married but didn’t live with her husband, who used to visit her. She lived in Durgapur with her daughter.

The police said Sarkar was suspected to have cut the woman’s body into at least three parts. Two bags recovered from the Hooghly contained the remains of the woman but did not have the head, the police said.

In the Indrani Mukerjea case too, there were initial reports that her daughter Sheena’s body might have been severed into parts and dumped in a forested area.

Another bag and a handbag Sarkar threw into the Hooghly are yet to be retrieved.

Employees of the bank’s Mamrabazaar branch in Durgapur knew Sarkar as a "gentleman who spoke mildly".

"He lived alone in Durgapur and we didn’t know whether he was married or not. We only knew that he was from Titagarh (in North 24-Parganas)," said a colleague of Sarkar.

"He left office around 12.30pm on Friday after complaining of ill health. We haven’t heard from him since," said the colleague. "In office, he is known for his good behaviour. He is a gentleman," the colleague added.

Neighbours of the murdered woman in Durgapur told that they saw Sarkar frequenting her house. They said the woman had introduced him as her brother. "He used to come regularly and sometimes stayed back at night. The woman introduced him as her brother," a neighbour said.

Since the bank’s branch and the woman’s house are separated by about 1km, many in the area knew Sarkar.

The woman had met her husband when they studied together at Banaras Hindu University. Neighbours said the family of the husband, a schoolteacher at Basirhat in North 24-Parganas, did not accept the marriage and the couple lived separately.

"Between 2010 and 2013, the couple’s relationship soured a bit. But he again started to visit her from 2014," a neighbour of the woman said.

Neighbours said they had last seen the mother and daughter on Thursday. The house was locked since Friday, a neighbour said.

During interrogation, Sarkar told the police that he had left office and gone to the woman’s house on Friday. "He is claiming that the woman first killed her daughter and then killed herself. He thought that he would be implicated in the case and hence was trying to dispose of the bodies. The claim is rubbish," an officer said.

The police have arrested Sarkar on charges of murder and attempt to destroy evidence. "We have arrested one person. A police team from Hooghly has reached Durgapur," said Praveen Tripathi, the SP of Hooghly.

Till late in the evening, six divers were trying to locate the other two bags that Sarkar had thrown into the river.

Late tonight, the police took Sarkar to the area where the murdered woman lived but could not enter her house as people threatened to beat up the accused. The police then took Sarkar to New Township police station in Durgapur.