Loan sharks hack a housewife to death in Howrah's Shibpur

A brutal murder shook the Shibpur locality of Howrah on Sunday when a middle-aged housewife, identified as Bharati Hazra, was hacked to death right outside her apartment complex. The local police made a swift breakthrough by arresting the accused creditor, Rajdeep Mukherjee, a resident of the Kasundia Shivtala area in Central Howrah. Investigators managed to track down and apprehend Mukherjee after meticulously scanning and analyzing closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage captured around the crime scene.

During preliminary police interrogation, Mukherjee reportedly made a shocking confession detailing the dark motives behind the horrific crime. The accused claimed that he had previously lent a loan of ₹1.5 lakh at a high interest rate to Hazra. Mukherjee desperately needed the money back as his mother had recently been diagnosed with cancer and was undergoing expensive treatments at a private hospital in Howrah. According to his statement, when he called Hazra to demand repayment, she not only refused to pay but also verbally abused him and cursed his ailing mother over the phone, wishing for her death.

Infuriated by the hostile response and driven by desperation, Mukherjee allegedly purchased a sharp knife, lured Hazra to the ground floor of her multi-storey apartment building, and slit her throat. However, the deceased woman's family has countered these claims with a different version of events. Her husband, Subrata Hazra, maintained that his wife had only borrowed ₹50,000 and was paying it back on time, but Mukherjee had been sending goons to threaten their lives to extort the full amount immediately.