East Midnapore police on Sunday night arrested four persons in connection with the death and disappearance of a homemaker from the Dum Dum Cantonment area.

Anita Das, 35, of Khudirampally in Dum Dum Cantonment, had been reported missing on March 8. Her body was found wrapped in a plastic bag on the Egra-Contai state highway the next morning, police said.

Das — mother of two children — was murdered on the evening of March 8 by Sourav Dey, a toto operator and a resident of Dum Dum Cantonment’s Natunbazar, with whom she allegedly had a relationship.

“We have learned that Dey drove Das’s body to his in-laws’ home in Egra in the early hours of March 9 and left it on their threshold to prove that he was faithful to his wife,” a police source said.

Dey’s wife, Moumita, had been living with her parents in Egra for the past couple of months after learning of her husband’s alleged affair with Das. “Moumita, her father, his friend, and Dey disposed of Das’s body in a hurry,” the officer said.

Moumita, her father Narayan Sil, and his friend Ramakanta Jana were arrested by a special investigation team of the East Midnapore police on Sunday night for trying to dispose of the body. Dey has been arrested for murder.

“We will interrogate Dey to uncover the real motive,” said SP (East Midnapore), Indira Mukherjee.

Police sources added that Dey had made several trips to Egra in the past month to win back his wife but was shunned by her and his in-laws.

“These factors, in combination with the financial motivation, could have prompted him to take the extreme and unusual step,” said an officer.

The four arrested were produced in the Contai chief judicial magistrate’s court on Monday morning. They have been remanded in seven days’ police custody.

Less than two weeks ago, East Midnapore police had arrested three persons in connection with murdering a Calcutta-based businessman and disposing of his body in a local train.