
Body of man found 40 days after he went missing from Bengal village; wife had ‘strangled' him, said police
Forty days after Robin Ruidas, a resident of Chanditala Junglepara village, went missing, his skeleton was discovered on Sunday. Then, his wife and three of her family members were arrested.
Police exhumed Ruidas's body, which was found buried half a kilometre away from his in-laws' house, near a tubewell in Radhanagar village within the Jangipara police station area of Murshidabad district. Officials said the discovery came after a marathon interrogation of Aparna Ruidas, who allegedly confessed to strangulation with a rope she used to tie goats.
According to police, the incident occurred on May 11 at Aparna's parents' house. Ruidas had reportedly gone there to visit his two children and wife. Aparna had been living with their children at her parents' home for the past seven years.
A missing person's report for Robin Ruidas was initially filed on May 13. However, on June 22, his elder brother, Bablu Ruidas, filed a detailed complaint with the Jangipara police, specifically accusing Aparna of his brother's murder. Following this, Aparna and the other accused were brought in for questioning.
'The police have arrested Aparna Ruidas, her father Joydeb Ruidas, brother Abhijit Ruidas, and brother-in-law Pradeep Patra. All four were produced before the Serampore Sub-divisional Court and have been remanded to police custody for four days,' said a police official. Police intend to take them to the crime scene for a reconstruction of the events.
The exhumation of the body was conducted in the presence of a magistrate, and the skeleton has been sent for further examination.
Sweety Kumari reports from West Bengal for The Indian Express. She is a journalist with over a decade of experience in the media industry. Covers Crime, Defence, Health , Politics etc and writes on trending topics.
With a keen eye for investigative and human-interest stories. She has honed her craft across diverse beats including aviation, health, incidents etc. Sweety delivers impactful journalism that informs and engages audiences.
Sweety Kumari is a graduate of Calcutta University with an Honors degree in Journalism from Jaipuria College and a PG in Mass Communication from Jadavpur University. Originally from Bihar, she is brought up in Kolkata and completed her education from Kendriya Vidyalaya SaltLake. Multilingual, Sweety is fluent in English, Hindi, Bengali, and Maithili. She started her career as an Entertainment and lifestyle journalist with a newsportal in Kolkata. She is working with The Indian Express for 8 years now. ... Read More
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Hindu
an hour ago
- The Hindu
What are the issues around deportation?
The story so far:At least seven West Bengal residents who were pushed to Bangladesh by the Border Security Force (BSF) on suspicion of being Bangladeshis were brought back to India after the intervention of the State government. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on June 25 that residents speaking in their native Bengali language are being branded as Bangladeshis in some Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled States. Several people who were pushed from Assam to Bangladesh also returned as they were found to be Indians or that their citizenship cases were sub-judice. Why have matters escalated? After the regime change in Bangladesh in August 2024, the police across the country were asked by the Union Home Ministry to detect Bangladeshis who had illegally entered the country and were living here on forged documents. The drive assumed momentum after the Pahalgam terror attack in April and the subsequent 'Operation Sindoor'. The Ministry has issued instructions to States to deport undocumented migrants but in most cases pushbacks are happening. Around 2,500 suspected Bangladeshis have been pushed back so far. On May 10, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the government has decided to implement the 'pushback' mechanism to check infiltration instead of going through the legal route which is a long-drawn process. Home Minister Amit Shah has asked top intelligence officials to make an example of 'infiltrators' by detecting, detaining, and deporting them. In 2022, at an Intelligence Bureau meeting, Mr. Shah had asked officials to identify around 100 illegal migrants in each State, check documents and arrest and deport them. He asked them to continue with the crackdown even if neighbouring countries do not accept the undocumented migrants. What is the difference between deportation and pushback? Deportation is a legal process which involves detaining and arresting a foreigner suspected to be living in India without documents or who has entered the country illegally. The case is presented before a court and after exhaustion of all legal avenues, which includes conviction by the court, the country which the foreigner belongs to is contacted and the deportation takes places once the identity is confirmed. Pushbacks are not a legal procedure and there are no stated rules. They happen when a foreigner has been caught by the border security force on the international border and, depending on the intensity of the case or the discretion of the border personnel, they are either arrested, made to face the law here or pushed back. Since citizenship and foreigners are Union List subjects, it is the Home Ministry which delegates powers to deport foreigners to State governments. In 2024, the Ministry told the Jharkhand High Court that since the 'Central Government does not maintain a separate federal police force exclusively dedicated to the task of detection and deportation of illegally staying foreigners, action in this regard has been entrusted to the State police.' What is the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950? On June 9, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the State government was likely to enforce a 1950 law to identify and evict illegal foreigners, adding that under the law, district commissioners are empowered to declare individuals as illegal immigrants and initiate eviction proceedings. The 1950 Act was passed by Parliament amid communal disturbance and violence following the Partition of India in 1947 and creation of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) bordering West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. The Act says that 'it extends to the whole of India', but has Assam-specific provisions. Section 2 of the Act says that if the Union government is of the opinion that any person or class of persons, having been ordinarily resident in any place outside India are detrimental to the interests of the general public of India or any Scheduled Tribe in Assam, the Union government may by order, 'direct such person or class of persons to remove himself or themselves from India or Assam within such time and by such route as may be specified in the order'; and 'give such further directions in regard to his or their removal from India or Assam as it may consider necessary or expedient'. What are the laws for foreigners? Till April this year, matters relating to foreigners and immigration were administered through 'pre-Constitution period' laws enacted during the First and Second World Wars, which were the Foreigners Act, 1946, Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920, the Registration of Foreigners Act, 1939 and the Immigration (Carriers' Liability) Act, 2000. In April, Parliament enacted the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 repealing the old laws. Unlike Pakistan and Bangladesh borders, the rules for movement of people along Nepal and Myanmar are different. Nepal has a free-border agreement with India, and a Free Movement regime (FMR), allowing movement of people residing within 10-km on either side, exists along the India-Myanmar border. Following the May 2023 ethnic violence in Manipur, the Ministry in 2024 decided to fence the entire 1,643-km Myanmar border in the next 10 years. Post the military coup in Myanmar in February 2021, over 40,000 refugees from Myanmar belonging to the Chin ethnic group who are closely related to the Mizo community crossed over to Mizoram. On March 10, 2021, the MHA sent a letter to the State governments of Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Mizoram that the refugees should be identified and deported and that the State Governments have no powers to grant 'refugee' status to any foreigner as India is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention of 1951 and its 1967 Protocol. The refugees continue to live here. What is behind this recent drive? Since the April 22 terror attack at Pahalgam, the police has intensified the drive to detect undocumented migrants. Initially, they were taken by trains to border districts and then pushed to Bangladesh by the BSF. In some instances, migrants after being up picked from Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra, were flown by planes to Agartala in Tripura and transported to the Bangladesh border by BSF personnel. The police and the BSF record biometrics and photographs of the undocumented migrants. It is to be noted that the BSF has never acknowledged any of the pushbacks. The Ministry has asked the States to verify the claims of undocumented migrants who claim Indian nationality after which District Magistrates are to send a report within 30 days, failing which the Foreigners Regional Registration Officer would deport them. In 2022, the Unique Identification Authority of India was asked to maintain a 'negative list' to stop undocumented migrants from procuring identity documents in the future.


India Today
3 hours ago
- India Today
Case against actor Puja Banerjee and husband for kidnapping, extorting filmmaker
A case was registered against actor Puja Banerjee and her husband Kunal Verma for allegedly kidnapping a Bengali film producer in Goa and extorting Rs 23 lakh from him. Reacting to the allegations against her, Puja Banerjee said that "God was watching". advertisementThe incident came to light after producer Shyam Sundar Dey's wife filed a complaint with the West Bengal Police, alleging that he was kidnapped when he was in Goa and his car was to Malabika Dey, a resident of Kolkata, the incident occurred between May 31 and June 4 when the accused "stopped and forcibly kidnapped" her husband while travelling in a rented car in Goa and held him hostage in a villa, North Goa Superintendent of Police (SP) Rahul Gupta said. The complainant claimed that the accused assaulted her husband and threatened to falsely implicate him in a drug case, Gupta added. It was also alleged that the accused kept Shyam Sunder Dey at different undisclosed locations and extorted Rs 23 lakh from Goa Police said it received a zero FIR from the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate, West Bengal, following which the case was registered at the Calangute police station in Goa on have ordered Shyam Sunder Dey and Malabika Dey ato appear at the Calangute police station on July 2 for questioning in connection with the matter. The direction of the Goa Police investigation will be clear only after case against Puja Banerjee and her husband was registered under Sections 126 (2) (wrongful restraint), 137 (2) (kidnapping), 140 (2) (kidnapping or abducting for murder or ransom), 308 (5) (extortion), 115 (2) (voluntarily causing hurt), 351 (3) (criminal intimidation) and other relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS).Posting a status on Instagram, Puja Banerjee wrote, "Going through the toughest time of our lives. To those who are standing by us - we will be forever grateful. And to those who believe in the lies being spread against us, God bless them too. I believe in God, and you know - God is watching."- Ends(with inputs from Ritesh) IN THIS STORY#Goa#West Bengal


Mint
9 hours ago
- Mint
‘Gunboy' review: A bloody good thriller set in the badlands of Maharashtra
Shreyas Rajagopal, who published his first novel Saltwater (2014) under the moniker of Shrey, has emerged from a decade-long hibernation with his new book, Gunboy. And it's been worth the wait. Set in Rannwara, the badlands of Maharashtra, it is as close to The Gangs of Wasseypur as you will get on the page. Unfolding in the same breathtaking pace as Anurag Kashyap's 2012 duology, Gunboy is a feat of storytelling—its 400-odd pages fly by before you know it—and told with a flair that standard-fare action thrillers can rarely muster. As a hardened literary fiction reader, I didn't expect the novel to engross me as much as it did, especially with all the casual and calculated violence, blood and gore, splattered all over its pages—the book isn't for the faint-hearted or squeamish—but by the time I was done with it, it left me spent but also moved. A major part of the appeal behind the Gunboy is the craft and care with which Rajagopal builds the eponymous character, a skinny 12-year-old Tamilian boy called Arvind, who feels like a fish out of water in the suburban outpost where his father, an employee at the local steel factory, has been transferred. With his strange accent and broken Hindi, he is an outsider, rife for bullying in the hands of Jaggi Ranade, the spoilt brat of a powerful political leader. School is a waking nightmare of beatings and humiliation in the hands of Jaggi and his gang of senior boys, a reign of terror that inevitably ends in bloodshed. Arvind suffers along with his best friend, a Bengali boy called Sudipto formerly schooled in America, another outcast like him, whose best means of self-defence is to piss his pants when beaten and force the tormentor to abandon him in disgust. Plump and pampered Sudipto is the son of Arvind's father's boss, but in the real world, the social dynamics between the two are turned upside down despite the difference of class and standing. It is Arvind, tough as nails, who steers the soft-hearted Sudipto through the tortures inflicted on them by Jaggi, scheming ingenious plans of escape when all his terrified friend can see is sure death by torture. Into this world of schoolboy mafia war arrives Amar Singh, a sharpshooter on the run after a botched mission in Mumbai, with the long arm of the underworld in his pursuit. Amar is protected by 'the Gun," a mythical instrument of death that came into his possession when he was a few years older than Arvind. The weapon has saved him from certain death at least twice, but in Rannwara, it is lost in a scuffle and falls in Arvind's hand. Rajagopal fractures the narrative voices into many pieces, giving short and urgent episodic bursts to his long cast of characters. The propulsive force of his writing not only provides the thriller with the kick it needs but also, at times, make it feel like the early draft of a screenplay of a TV series or movie in the making. If the cinematic energy of Gunboy makes the novel a page turner, it is Rajagopal's gift for creating rounded and credible characters that keeps the reader's investment in the story high all through. Not everyone is given a solidly fleshed out back story, especially Amar Singh, whose transformation from a 16-year-old sidekick in the Mumbai underworld to one of its most feared snipers perhaps deserved more attention. But in the microcosm that is Rannwara, Arvind, Sudipto, Jaggi and their social circles are depicted with a piercing acuity. The genteel privilege of the Chatterjees (Sudipto's parents) is contrasted with the god-fearing, middle-class, IIT-worshipping Tamil household where Arvind grows up. Then there are the Ranades. The patriarch is past his heyday, bedridden but still obeyed like a deity, the mother of his three boys is dead, while his three musketeers are each of a kind: Om, the eldest, is cerebral and cunning, while the younger two, Jai and Jaggi, are hot-headed brutes, foolhardy, and lusting for blood at the slightest provocation. Thrown into this urban jungle inhabited by the ultra-civilised and ultra-barbaric, Arvind is an anomaly. Unlike his sister Srilekha, whose life's goal is to win her father's approval by qualifying for a seat at an IIT, he is a sharp kid who can already see patriarchal boorishness for what it is. As he labels his math teacher, Mr Ray, 'a vicious little man in a world of vicious little men." And yet, literally a little man in this dangerous world of grown-ups, Arvind finds himself radically changed, or rather released from the shell in which he had hidden his true self, after his chance encounter with Amar Singh. Gunboy remains mesmerising because it gives the reader a ringside view into revenge as seen by a 12-year-old male child. Srilekha, who is also betrayed in other ways than Arvind, is held back by an innately gendered sense of duty, even love, until the very end. At 16, she too is a child, but one who has the demon of patriarchy breathing down her neck, punishing her for 'crimes" that are part of every pubescent youth's coming of age. Arvind isn't forgiven or protected by his misdeeds either. He has other crosses to bear, such as being born a male child in a society where, people, meaning mostly men, 'protest violence with violence and will be put down with violence." In Rannwara, especially, violence is 'the language of the state, the language of its people." Even at home, almost all of Arvind's communication with his Appa is through the language of violence—beatings, verbal abuse, constant heckling. If it puts things in perspective, the story is set in the 1990s, where punitive parenting was the norm, not that it has been eradicated fully still. But Rajagopal gives us a chilling sense of what it was—indeed, still is—for a generation, and class, of children growing up in a country, where histories of violence are handed down like heirlooms. It makes the reader question all the welfarist narratives of India Shining out there, when in the big, bad world, there are gunboys like Arvind running amok, making headlines for crimes too shocking for words, as they grow up into men like Amar Singh.