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The police said the 28-year-old was found hanging by her family members around 10am on Tuesday on the first floor of her Kusumba village-based house in Birbhum.

The body has been sent for an autopsy to the Rampurhat Government Medical College and Hospital, and the Rampurhat police have started an investigation into her death.

A senior police officer of Birbhum district police said, “Primarily it seems to be a suicide case. However, we are considering every ground of unnatural death, and an investigation is being conducted.”

Her mother, Pampa Mukherjee told the media, “Her marriage did not work out. They (her family) frequently sent her back here. We had filed for a divorce. We are shattered now…”

Besides, Bristy Mukherjee was also among those who lost their jobs — as a non-teaching staff member of the Bolpur Upper Primary School — in March 2023 after the Supreme Court scrapped recruitment orders for teachers in state government-aided schools in the alleged ‘cash-for-jobs’ case. Nearly 26,000 teaching and non-teaching staffers were dismissed.

The appointments were initially struck down by the Calcutta High Court and later upheld by the Supreme Court.

While the family had earlier claimed she had resigned from her job on health grounds, it was later revealed that her name had surfaced in the alleged illegal recruitment case.

The case stems from the alleged 2016 School Service Commission ‘cash-for-jobs’ scam, a major alleged corruption scandal during Mamata Banerjee’s 15-year tenure. Then education minister Partha Chatterjee, party MLAs and senior officials were arrested in the case.