Even as police received an initial setback in the probe after the assailant Amarendra Kundu expired late on Sunday night while being shifted to Kolkata in a critical condition, recovery of three mobiles from the victim’s ground floor room in “Ananda Sadan”, the hostel, provided few vital clues.
“We have asked the additional commissioner of the detective department to make a detailed inquiry and submit a report,” city Police Commissioner Goutam Mohan Chakraborty told newspersons here at the headquarters.
Meanwhile, students of all faculties of the Visva Bharati boycotted their classes on Sunday and took out a silent procession as a mark of protest against the failure of the university administration in ensuring security in the girls’ hostel.
 On Sunday night, a civilian driver serving the additional officer-in-charge of Tollygunj police station, Kundu who shot himself in a bid to commit suicide after killing Saswati, succumbed to his injuries.
While two cellphones belonged to the victim and Kundu, police have been trying to trace the owner of the third.
After examining the calls, police found that Saswati and Kundu had a relationship for quite some time and the two kept in touch with each other through their cellphones. But an SMS was sent to Kundu on Saturday, a day prior to the shootout, threatening him with dire consequences if he does not “exit from the life of Saswati,” reports said.
This perhaps drove Kundu into fury and prompted him to steal the .32 Calibre service pistol of constable Sunil K Majhi of Tollygunj police station in the city and take the morning train to Shantiniketan on Sunday, police said.
Majhi has since been suspended for dereliction of duty as it was found that he put the gun in the chest after finishing his night patrol, but forgot to lock it. Kundu took advantage of the lapse.
This is not the first incident of a breach of security that the Visva Bharati campus witnessed. Tagore’s famous Nobel medallion was also stolen from the university museum in March 2005.