‘Dead’ man turns up in court only to land in jail

Sept 22, 2010


A woman’s determination to prove herself innocent of charges of murder has landed her husband in jail - the man she had been accused of murdering.
On Tuesday a man who had been living in Vasai for the last 12 years was produced before a West Bengal court in a harassment case.

Biswajit Karmakar, a resident of Malda in West Bengal, got married to Saraswati in 1998. However, four months into the marriage Biswajit - who used to run a hardware store in Malda - disappeared. Saraswati said she searched for him, but in vain. However, she did not file any police complaint.

In 2003, her father-in-law Birendranath filed a case against her, alleging that she had murdered Biswajit. She was arrested and later released on bail.

Though Birendranath passed away in 2006, the case continued as Biswajit’s brother Pulak and mother Bharati included themselves as complainants.

In 2007, Saraswati met a Kolkata-based journalist, who, while following up the story, started searching for Biswajit.

“Biswajit’s uncle, a Kolkata resident, said he received letters from Biswajit who was staying in Mumbai.

The journalist somehow managed to get the address from him and traced Biswajit to an address in Vasai. When he went there, the journalist found that my husband was running a shop there,” said Saraswati.

“The journalist even shot a video of my husband, of which he gave me a copy,” she said, adding that she found that Biswajit’s parents knew of this and his mother even stayed with him barely a month ago.

Following this revelation, Saraswati lodged a complaint at the English Bazaar Police Station under section 498 (A) of the IPC (Husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty) against her husband.

“He was arrested on September 17 and produced at a local court and then handed over to the Kolkata cops,” said senior police inspector, CM Jadhav of Manikpur Police Station.

On Tuesday the Malda Civil Junior Judges Court acquitted Saraswati of all charges and asked that Biswajit’s family be booked for misleading the court. Meanwhile, Biswajit was remanded in police custody.