School friends recall 'bully' - Udayan posed as engineer to stay in Bankura

Udayan Das

Rasheed Kidwai and Abhijeet Chatterjee, TT, Bhopal Feb. 7: Udayan Das was a "bully" in school and was rusticated in Class VII for causing a serious head injury to a classmate, two former batchmates of the youth accused of killing partner Akansha Sharma have told police.

Sameer Kamdar and Vaibhav Pathak, who studied with Udayan at St. Joseph Convent School, told the police in Bhopal today that Udayan was rusticated after the attack. They said they met Udayan at the school reunion on January 5 this year.

"He told us he was in Bhopal on a visit from the US and had high-level meetings with the Madhya Pradesh government lined up," Kamdar said. Deepak Nayar, another classmate, said Udyan had told him he had come to Bhopal on a Unicef assignment.

The police have found in Udayan's house - where he allegedly entombed Akansha - a Class XII marksheet of Subhash School, Bhopal, issued in 2002. Principal Sarita Saxena had denied that Udayan was a student between 2000 and 2002 or later.

Fahim Khan, a neighbour of Udayan at his earlier home in Bhopal's Shivaji Nagar in the 90s, recalled him as a "violent and arrogant child".

Khan said Udayan's mother Indrani, whom he claims to have killed along with his father V.K. Das, used to beat him up regularly.

"We often heard him crying loudly in the bathroom, where he used to be kept locked up for hours. Udayan did not have a normal childhood," Khan said, adding that the Dases were "not social".

Bhopal police have formed a team to probe how Udayan got a fake death certificate of his mother in Itarsi town.

Akansha's family in Bankura recalled that Udayan had posed as a friend of the girl from Delhi and spent two days at her home last October, two months after the crime.

Akansha's brother Ayush said Udayan, whom he recognised when he went to Bhopal last week after being informed about his sister's murder, had used the girl's phone to send a WhatsApp message to her father saying "a friend from Delhi" would come to Bankura on work and stay at her house.

Ayush said the family had not asked Udayan his name.

Police sources said Udayan had told Akansha's family that he was an engineer and had come to Bankura to oversee some projects.

Udayan was brought to Bankura around 11 last night from Chhattisgarh's Raipur. He was today remanded in eight days' police custody.