‘She loved everyone’: Family mourns murdered Barrackpore pensioner

KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

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Tara Bridge­mo­han was a kind moth­er who loved to cook and spend time with her fam­i­ly and neigh­bours. That is how rel­a­tives and friends want the 75-year-old re­mem­bered af­ter she was found dead while bound and gagged in­side her bed­room fol­low­ing an ap­par­ent home in­va­sion at her Has­sanali Trace South, Bar­rack­pore home.

Hours af­ter her mur­der, rel­a­tives, neigh­bours and friends gath­ered qui­et­ly out­side the house, em­brac­ing one an­oth­er through tears as they shared sto­ries about the pen­sion­er they de­scribed as gen­er­ous, wel­com­ing and al­ways will­ing to help.

Po­lice said Bridge­mo­han was last seen alive around 4.30 pm on Fri­day af­ter her daugh­ter and son-in-law left home to tend to their bar in Mon­key Town. When they re­turned short­ly af­ter 1 am yes­ter­day, they found a down­stairs room ran­sacked and a win­dow on the side of the house bro­ken. As they searched the two-storey home, they dis­cov­ered more rooms in dis­ar­ray be­fore find­ing Bridge­mo­han ly­ing face down on a bed in an up­stairs bed­room.

Her hands were tied be­hind her back with black tie straps, and a red cloth cov­ered her face and mouth.

Of­fi­cers from the Bar­rack­pore Po­lice Sta­tion re­spond­ed and said Bridge­mo­han was still show­ing signs of life when they ar­rived. They im­me­di­ate­ly ren­dered as­sis­tance un­til Emer­gency Med­ical Tech­ni­cians reached the scene, but she was lat­er pro­nounced dead.

Po­lice be­lieve rob­bery was the like­ly mo­tive.

Speak­ing at the fam­i­ly home yes­ter­day, Bridge­mo­han’s son-in-law, In­dar­d­ath Ra­goo­nanan, re­called the fright­en­ing mo­ments that un­fold­ed af­ter he and his wife Mala re­turned from work.

“I left here around 4.30 and went down to the bar to as­sist my wife. Around 1 o’clock last night, when we closed up and came up the road, she parked over there, and I went and opened the door. As soon as we opened the door and I went in­side, the whole place was ran­sacked. So then I re­alised that some­body came in,” Ra­goo­nanan said.

Fear­ing the in­trud­ers might still be in­side, Ra­goo­nanan told his wife to stay back while he called the po­lice. Two friends who had been at the bar ar­rived short­ly af­ter­wards to help them check the house.

His wife then be­came con­cerned about her moth­er, who had been up­stairs.

“She said, ‘Boy, Ma­ma up­stairs. What to do?’ So I told her, ‘Well, they can­not go out­side, be­cause if it has some­body with a gun or a cut­lass…’ So I called the po­lice, and the po­lice told us to stay. They said they’ll be here short­ly.”

Ra­goo­nanan even­tu­al­ly went up­stairs while telling his wife to re­main down­stairs. He switched on the kitchen light af­ter notic­ing that the up­stairs was in dark­ness.

“When I went in, I saw her ly­ing down. Her hands and feet were tied with tie straps. Her mouth was tied up with cloth and stuffed to sti­fle her. When I saw that, I kind of got scared. She, my wife, was com­ing, so I said, ‘Aye, don’t come.’ She said, ‘What hap­pened?’ I said, ‘Girl, your moth­er died.’”

Ra­goo­nanan said the killing had shak­en his sense of se­cu­ri­ty in what he had al­ways con­sid­ered a peace­ful com­mu­ni­ty. Al­though he de­scribed it as the first home in­va­sion on the street, he re­called an­oth­er re­cent vi­o­lent at­tack else­where in the dis­trict and ques­tioned whether crim­i­nals had been watch­ing the fam­i­ly’s re­cent­ly re­opened bar.

He said in­creased po­lice pa­trols were need­ed, adding that de­spite the State of Emer­gency, peo­ple con­tin­ued to move about late at night.

“This is 12 years I’ve been liv­ing here, and we’ve nev­er had this kind of prob­lem. The neigh­bours are re­al­ly friend­ly, and she al­ways felt com­fort­able here. Even last night, I still had hope that when I went up­stairs I’d find her alive, but that hope wasn’t much.”

De­scrib­ing Bridge­mo­han, Ra­goo­nanan said she wel­comed every­one in­to her home and al­ways put oth­ers be­fore her­self.

“She liked be­ing around her fam­i­ly and her neigh­bours. She was a very kind-heart­ed per­son. If she had some­thing, she could do with­out it and give it to some­body else. I came in­to this home as a stranger and was wel­comed like fam­i­ly. I don’t know how much more I can say, but she will be missed dear­ly. What hap­pened here is a tremen­dous loss.”