Darjeeling News: Hill teacher murdered - Army jawan’s wife and her brother arrested

Rupa Rai and Washa Rai at Darjeeling police station on Friday. Pictures by Suman Tamang

Darjeeling, Jan. 6.TT: A retired headmaster was found murdered on the premises of an apartment building in Ghoom where he had gone to meet an army jawan’s wife.

The body of David Tshering Lepcha with the throat slit and cut marks on the face was recovered last night. It was wrapped in a blanket and stuck into a two-feet gap in the boundary wall of the four-storeyed building where 22-year-old Rupa Rai stays. Rupa is married to an army jawan from Illam in Nepal.

David Tshering had been reported missing for 11 days and police said he was carrying more than Rs 2 lakh with him.

Rupa and her 18-year-old brother Washa with whom she stayed in the rented groundfloor apartment in Daragaon have been arrested and charged with murder and abduction.

The 62-year-old former headmaster of Dhooterya Saraswati Primary School was a resident of BN Gonga Road in Darjeeling and had been described by the police as a “very sociable man”. He had withdrawn Rs 2.8 lakh from a Darjeeling bank and had headed for Siliguri to make payment for land he had bought at Salbari on December 27. “His mobile phone was switched off from 1.30pm on December 27. We learnt from source information that he had alighted from a Siliguri taxi at Ghoom and had instead gone to Rupa Rai’s house at Daragoan in the Ghoom Bhanjyan area,” said a police officer. The police said Rupa, too, had admitted that “Uncle David Lepcha” had come to her house but had left after drinking a glass of hot water.

The headmaster’s daughter Bina Lepcha had filed a missing diary report on December 28. “At the moment, we will describe it as murder for gain,” said the official. “We also found out that David Tshering’s relatives stayed near Rupa’s house,” said the official. The police are investigating what prompted David Tshering to visit Rupa. “Rupa and her brother Washa who also hails from Illam district in Nepal and was trying to get recruited as a jawan in the Indian army, had been staying at the rented place at Daragaon for a few years. The body was found squeezed inside the boundary wall and was covered with a blanket. Without specific information it would have been difficult to locate the body,” said the official.

Nepalese citizens are recruited by the Indian army.

The police also said Rupa had a strained relation with her husband. “It is learnt that the husband had stopped sending money to Rupa. She had borrowed a lot of money from many people,” said the police officer. Neighbours told the police that they had heard a thumping sound coming from Rupa’s house on December 27. “When we quizzed her, Rupa told us that her husband had come to the house with his second wife and that they had fought on that,” said a police official. The police have not yet recovered the murder weapon or the cash.