The IIT Kharagpur topper whose strangling of his sister followed by an unsuccessful suicide bid shocked the city yesterday had been disturbed for a while because of failure in business, said a relative of the accused.
The IIT Kharagpur topper whose strangling of his sister followed by an unsuccessful suicide bid shocked the city yesterday had been disturbed for a while because of failure in business, said a relative of the accused.
Subhojit Basu (29) allegedly strangled his sister Priyadarshini at the apartment in Bavdhan they lived in. He then consumed a poisonous floor cleaning liquid and slashed his wrist in a bid to end his life.
According to his uncle S Basu, who flew to the city yesterday from Kolkata after learning of the incident, Subhojit was mentally disturbed as he had failed to make a mark in business.
The police said after his sister was dead, Subhojit called his professor from IIT Kharagpur, Aurbindo Roy, and told him he had killed Priyadarshini and was now going to commit suicide.
As Roy was unsuccessful in pacifying Subhojit, he called the police control room in the city and informed them about the incident.
Arrested at home
The police reached Subhojit's apartment in Aparajita building, Shinde Nagar, Bavdhan, at 5.45 am yesterday and arrested him.
"His professor from Kharagpur tried to dissuade him from committing suicide during their 15-minute conversation on the phone, but as Subhojit remained firm, the professor alerted the police," Senior Police Inspector Ganpat Madgulkar said. "His mother said he had recently lost his laptop and all vital data stored on it, and was very upset."
The officer added that they suspected there might have been a quarrel between brother and sister before
the incident.
Subhojit was admitted to Sassoon hospital.
Drama at Sassoon
At the hospital, Subhojit tried to make a break for the outdoors while being shifted to Ward Number 15 from the recovery room, which was witnessed by MiD DAY. Police Naik Rajendra Thorve was able to stop Subhojit, but received a cut on his right wrist in the struggle with him. Thorve was treated at the hospital.
"Subhojit was violent and attempted to break free of the bandages," Thorve said. "He tried to run away two times."
Another case was lodged against Subhojit after this incident.
The police said Subhojit was associated with national chemical laboratory (NCL). It was not immediately clear what the exact nature of his association with NCL was.
According to Shiv Roy, Subhojit's batch-mate from Kharagpur, Basu was from the 2004 batch and had done MTech in Integrated Electrical Engineering before venturing into business. Roy said, "Subhojit had gone to the US for PhD and had come back to India abruptly. He worked with Intel in Bangalore and was in Pune for the past year-and-a-half."
The post-mortem on Priyadarshini revealed she died of asphyxiation.
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