The 29-year-old sus­pect who was ar­rest­ed short­ly af­ter the mur­ders of ba­by Ja­da Mooti­lal and her moth­er Tara “Gee­ta” Ram­sa­roop, 34, says he is sor­ry for what he did.

The sus­pect, a close male rel­a­tive of the ba­by and her moth­er, was held on Tues­day af­ter the mur­ders in a forest­ed area on Pla­tinique Road in Bar­rack­pore. Po­lice said he had a rope with him.

A few hours be­fore, at 11 am, the bod­ies of Ram­sa­roop and her ba­by girl were found at a house on Lo­ca­tion Road, Bar­rack­pore.

Yes­ter­day, the sus­pect’s moth­er told Guardian Me­dia the po­lice al­lowed her to speak with him on the tele­phone on Tues­day night. She said he was cry­ing on the phone. The woman claimed the sus­pect al­so ex­pressed re­morse.

“I say boy you shouldn’t do some­thing like that. I say how much time we talk to you boy. He say, ‘mam­my I sor­ry for what I do. But al­lyuh hold a lawyer for me nah mam­my. I beg­ging you’,” the moth­er said.

She re­called that she had urged her son many times to move on with his life af­ter he and Ram­sa­roop be­came es­tranged. But the moth­er said the sus­pect told her he loved Ram­sa­roop.

“I al­ways tell him boy move on with your life nah boy. She leave you and gone, move on nah, move on. He say he can­not do with­out she,” the woman claimed.

Yes­ter­day, au­top­sies per­formed on the bod­ies at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre re­vealed the ba­by suf­fered a chop wound to her neck while Ram­sa­roop was chopped mul­ti­ple times.

While rel­a­tives of the vic­tims and sus­pect are strug­gling to come to terms with the in­ci­dent, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Wayne Mys­tar yes­ter­day de­fend­ed his of­fi­cers against sting­ing crit­i­cism by Ram­sa­roop’s rel­a­tives over their al­leged in­ac­tion in the mat­ter.

In an in­ter­view on a ra­dio pro­gramme yes­ter­day, ACP Mys­tar re­spond­ed to the rel­a­tives’ claims. Mak­ing it clear that he was not blam­ing any­one or en­gag­ing in vic­tim blam­ing, he said an in­ter­im pro­tec­tion or­der was is­sued against the sus­pect on April 24, and the fi­nal pro­tec­tion or­der was grant­ed last week. He said the po­lice served it on the sus­pect on Sun­day (Oc­to­ber 6).

He con­firmed that Ram­sa­roop made re­ports to the po­lice but none were made af­ter the in­ter­im pro­tec­tion or­der was grant­ed. How­ev­er, Mys­tar said it was “quite strange” that Ram­sa­roop went to the sus­pect’s home while a pro­tec­tion or­der was in ef­fect.

“All pro­to­cols as it re­lates to the TTPS were fol­lowed in terms of fol­low­ing the court’s or­der, serv­ing the per­sons and en­sur­ing that that was done. We can’t have per­sons who have pro­tec­tion or­ders to pro­tect them, they them­selves op­er­at­ing in a man­ner that would put them­selves in harm’s way,” he said.

Sev­en months ago, Ram­sa­roop fled an abu­sive re­la­tion­ship and moved in­to her own home with her two chil­dren, Ja­da, and her eight-year-old son.

Ram­sa­roop had two oth­er chil­dren, aged 14 and 15, from a pre­vi­ous re­la­tion­ship, but they did not live with her.

Ram­sa­roop’s sis­ter Jas­so­dra Ra­jaram said the sus­pect was wait­ing for her sis­ter when she dropped off her son at his pri­ma­ry school in Bar­rack­pore on Tues­day.

She was dri­ving a car which be­longed to a friend.

The sis­ter said she strong­ly be­lieves the sus­pect forced her sis­ter to dri­ve back to his house at Lo­ca­tion Road, grabbed the ba­by and ran in­to his house. She sus­pects her sis­ter fol­lowed him in­side to get her ba­by.

Af­ter the mur­ders, Ram­sa­roop’s son’s pri­ma­ry school was locked down af­ter they were alert­ed the sus­pect may have been head­ing there.

Po­lice re­ports stat­ed that the sus­pect burnt Ram­sa­roop’s car and al­leged­ly called his rel­a­tives to con­fess.

Ra­jaram claimed her sis­ter made nu­mer­ous re­ports against the sus­pect and ob­tained four pro­tec­tion or­ders, but the po­lice nev­er ar­rest­ed him.

Asked about Mys­tar’s claim that the pro­tec­tion or­der was served on the sus­pect, she said her in­for­ma­tion is that the po­lice went to his home but didn’t find him.

“I think now that she was mur­dered they want to say that it was served,” she added.

Re­gard­ing the sus­pect, Ra­jaram be­lieves noth­ing “trig­gered him to do this” be­cause he had abused her sis­ter for years.

“He de­mon­ic for years, over six years,” she lament­ed.

Of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion 3 are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.