Kolkata police have submitted a chargesheet against Vimal Sharma, who allegedly killed trader Shanti Lal Baid in a guesthouse in February and fled the city with a ransom of Rs 25 lakh.
Sharma has been charged with murder, kidnapping for ransom, causing disappearance of evidence, voluntarily causing hurt by robbery, cheating and criminal intimidation.
If convicted, he can be sentenced to death.
Baid, 66, who had last left home on Lee Road in south Kolkata’s Bhowanipore on February 14 evening, was found dead inside a guesthouse a few hours after his family had received ransom calls and handed Rs 25 lakh to the alleged kidnapper in the presence of plainclothesmen in front of the Victoria Memorial.
As the trader did not return even after the money changed hands, the police launched a search. They tracked the tower locations of Baid’s mobile phone and zeroed in on the on Sambhunath Pandit Street guesthouse where his body was found the next morning.
Sharma, 28, who had hired a taxi and allegedly fled to Howrah station to catch a Puri-bound train after collecting the ransom, could not be arrested for the next two weeks.
He was nabbed near Ahmedabad in the first week of March.
“We have submitted a 240-page chargesheet, in which Vishal Sharma has been charged with murdering Shanti Lal Baid and under other sections,” said an officer at Lalbazar.
The next step in the legal procedure, following the submission of the chargesheet, is framing of charges by the court. Then the trial will start.
