Jharkhand police identify 3 of 4 bodies found on rail track, arrest 4 for murder

Three of the four mutilated dead bodies found on the railway track between Talaburu and Kendoposi stations in West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand during the wee hours of Saturday have been identified as that of a 35-year-old woman and her two children from Tungubasa Tollah in Nurda village, police said on Sunday.

The fourth dead body with severed head was yet to be identified conclusively. Police said he could probably be from the same family.

Police officials familiar with the matter said that four accused have been detained late Saturday night in connection with the gruesome murders.

The deceased have been identified as Raibari Sinku (35), her eight-month-old son Sagar Sinku and two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Raimuni Sinku. Raibari’s husband Binu Sinku works in Pune as a migrant worker.

“The woman was having some family dispute with her second husband’s uncle and the latter’s sons. Her first husband had deserted her after which she got married again. The names of five suspects have come up during the investigation. The woman, her one-and-a-half-year-old daughter and eight-month-old son were murdered and then thrown on the railway track to give it a look of suicide. But it is a clear case of murder. The deceased woman’s 15-year-old daughter had somehow managed to escape the assailants and is now the only surviving member of the family,” Ashutosh Shekhar, West Singhbhum superintendent of police (SP), told HT on Sunday.

The SP said that a special investigation team (SIT) headed by Jagannathpur sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) Rakesh Nandan Minz was formed to arrest the suspected accused and investigate the murders.

SDPO Rakesh Nandan Minz said that the fourth dead body - that of an adult man - was found about 2-3 km away from the spot where the other three mutilated dead bodies were found. We are still trying to establish his identity conclusively, if it is of the deceased’s second husband or anyone else. We are, however, investigating all possible angles,” added Minz.

“The family dispute had been going on for some time and she was accused of practicing witchcraft by the second husband’s uncle’s family. A compromise agreement was made in a meeting presided over by the village Munda some time ago,” a police officer, not willing to be quoted, said.

The breakthrough in the sensational murders came when Raibari Sinku’s second husband Binu Sinku’s elder brother Jumbal Sinku identified her dead body. He told police that this was not a case of suicide, but the woman was murdered along with her two children first and then dumped on the railway track.

Jumbal told police that the assailants had planned to kill all five members of the family - the deceased woman, her husband and their three children. He said that the third daughter was eyewitness to the gruesome killings. He also took the police to a tamarind tree where the woman was allegedly tied up and beaten brutally.

“Jumbal Sinku said he saved the third daughter by running away. He brought her to the police station later in the day. She is now the key to the investigation,” the police officer said.