Housewife murder: Hotel manager held in Jharkhand

KOLKATA: The arrest of a hotel manager from Jharkhand in a six-month-old case of a murder at a hotel in New Market is likely to change the course of the probe, said officers. Accused Harihar Mahato was arrested from Dhanwar by the Anandapur police, taking the number of arrests in this case to four.

"The prime accused is still at large. Once we arrest him, the puzzle will be solved," claimed an officer. Mahato had planned the destruction of evidence at the hotel and arranged for his relative's car to dump the bodies of Archana Palangdar and her paramour Balaram Kesari.

The housewife from Ultadanga was found murdered last August. Kesari, too, was found dead with poison in his stomach. The accused had been claiming that it was Kesari who had killed Palangdar and then committed suicide. They claimed they had dumped the bodies in a canal near Anandapur to "keep the hotel above police suspicion."

"We know the accused fled to Jharkhand after the incident and partied together. We believe the murders of both Palangdar and Kesari were pre-planned. We are looking into all possible angles," said a police source.

The police said that after the bodies were disposed, the accused drove to Jharkhand. "The theory of Kesari drinking poison after murdering Palangdar becomes difficult to believe. We found that the duo had gone to a restaurant in Esplanade and were drunk at the time of their death," said a source.