A 51-year-old man (name withheld on family request) was beaten to death on April 10. The incident occurred at a Development Area. Police have arrested a man namely Tsheten Bhutia from Darjeeling ( at present residing in Gangtok)on the charges of murder IPC 302 CrPc.
As per police report, on April 10 at around 10:50pm police received a call book intimation from hospital stating that one unknown patient was brought to hospital by Tsheten Bhutia who found him in an unconscious state at Development Area, Gangtok.
However, the patient was declared brought dead by the Medical Officer. During the investigation, an inquest over the dead body was conducted, and then it was forwarded to STNM Hospital.
Later, the dead body was handed over to its legal guardian. The Place of occurrence located at Development Area was visited, CCTV footage of nearby area and witnesses acquainted with the facts & circumstances of the case were examined.
Upon scanning the CCTV Footage, a woman was identified and on interrogating her, she revealed that she was having an affair with the deceased and the alleged person, Tsheten Bhutia is her cousin’s brother. There were a altercations between the deceased and the culprit which turned into physical scuffle with each other during which the alleged Tseten Bhutia pushed him off the stairs wherein the deceased fell from the stairs (about 3 meters) and landed straight on the concrete and banged his head and became unconscious.
Thereafter, the alleged Tseten Bhutia again went down the stairs and assaulted the deceased by kicking him in his stomach several times. Later when Tseten Bhutia realised that the deceased was dead, he made up his mind to take him to Hospital in a pretext that he had found the deceased person lying in an unconscious and that he was helping him to evacuate him to hospital for medical treatment. The said incident was also witnessed by an eye witness.
The culprit has been arrested and is in police custody.
By Nirmal Mangar