ngal KOLKATA: Bengal's high profile serial killer Udayan Das (32), who killed his 28-year-old Facebook friend-turned-girlfriend and buried her in a marble tomb at his Bhopal residence in August last year after murdering his parents seven years ago and burying them in Raipur, would face the trial in Bankura court on Tuesday.
He was flown from Raipur to Kolkata on transit remand by West Bengal police on Monday. The police is likely to drive him down to Bankura on Tuesday morning and seek his 15-day judicial custody from court for probe into the triple-murder case.
How skeletons tumbled out, literally
Police tracked down deceased Akansha Sharma's number after her father Shivendra Kumar Sharma, a bank manager, had lodged a missing complaint with the Bankura Police last month. A Bengal police team reached Udayan through Akansha's number, which he was operating to communicate with Akansha's parents. During interrogation, Udayan revealed that he had strangled his live-in partner in a fit of rage in August 2016 and packed her body into a trunk and erected a tomb around it in his living room due to lack of place to dump the body. Akansha's remains were exhumed and sent for DNA test.
During the course of investigation, Udayan also revealed that he had murdered both his parents seven years ago and buried them in the courtyard of their bungalow in Raipur. Udayan led the police to grave sites of his parents and marked the exact burial site. Two skeletons were exhumed of which one had tufts of long hair and broken bangles near the hand. Both the skeletons were sent for DNA test.
Drugs, rage and forgery
Udayan has revealed to Bengal police officials that he strangled his mother Indrani Das to death in 2010 after she nagged him to get a job and reduce unnecessary spending on drugs. To cover-up the murder of his mother, Udayan claimed he had mixed sleeping pills in the tea of his father Birendra Kumar Das and then strangled him too. "He had hired a person to dig a pit for a septic tank and paid him triple the market rate of that time. The pit was dug in a single night. He buried the two bodies and sold the Raipur bungalow," an investigating officer told Express.
Sources revealed that fake death certificates of heart attack of Indrani and Birendra Kumar Das were also found in Udayan's computer. Udayan's parents were top government officials. The family shifted to Sundarnagar SBI Colony in Raipur after transfer of Birendra Kumar Das from Saketnagar in Bhopal. Despite having been good at studies until Class XII, he got into drugs in the first year of B.Tech and dropped out of college, sources revealed.
Akansha's parents fear Udayan wanted to kill them too
After the triple murder came to fore, deceased Akansha's parents Shivendra Kumar Sharma and Shashibala Sharma fear that Udayan may have come to kill them on the pretext of visiting their rented house in Bankura town in October last year. Demanding noose for Udayan, Akansha's parents said that Udayan assured them that their daughter was working with an NGO in US along with him. Akansha, a Delhi-educated girl, had befriended Udayan over Facebook where he had introduced himself as a Non-Resident Indian (NRI) with contacts in the United Nations. Udayan had promised to get Akansha a job in UNESCO in the United States.
"Akansha had told us about Udayan a few months after she befriended him over Facebook. She told that Udayan would help her get a job in US. I trusted and sent her off to Delhi on June 23. For first 10 days, she regularly spoke to us over the phone. Then, she started communicating only on WhatsApp. Udayan came in October first week and stayed for two days. However, my suspicion grew when Akansha did not come in November and I lodged a police complaint on January 4, 2017," Shivendra Kumar Sharma told Express. Akansha's parents have also alleged that Udayan had siphoned off Rs 1, 20, 000 from her account.
Victims were kept alive on Facebook
Udayan kept his three victims alive on Facebook through fake profiles, where he posted regular updates and comments to avoid drawing any suspicion from his relatives or Akansha's parents. He even posted intimate pictures with his girlfriend and love quotes showing how much he loved her. The accused posted comments from his father's account too. While the cover picture of Akansha is a picture of Udayan kissing her, Udayan shows off a brand new car which he claims was bought abroad. Analysing the planning and cold-blooded triple murders, many investigating officers have found Udayan's similarities with Charles Shobraj, Indrani Mukherjee or Delhi's infamous tandoor murder accused.