The gory end to the long love affair between Reshmi Gupta and her suitors, Pritam Chakraborty and Mousam Singh Ray, came with Ray deciding to put an end to the tangle.

Superintendent of Police, Howrah, Surjeet Kar Purokayasta, who informed the ENS that body of Pritam Chakraborty was recovered today from Hooghly Dock, said: ``It's a flat case of murder but what was most shocking that a group of teenagers was hired to kill another group of teenagers.''

According to the police, the affair took a serious turn when Ray, a Class XI student, ``who came into the lives of Reshmi Gupta and Pritam Chakraborty a little later, had decided to get rid of him by engaging hired assassins.''

The police, which arrested six, including the girl for the abetment of the crime, said Ray engaged four of his friends on condition thatthey be paid Rs 500 after executing the plot. Two of his friends are Karate experts, police said.

Incidentally, Chakraborty had had a long affair with Reshmi, who is also under arrest for the abetment of the crime, but when Ray came in, he took the former for an intruder. Chakraborty, also a student of Class XI, was warned several times by Ray over the telephone telling him to keep off Reshmi, to which he paid no heed.

The police said: ``We have arrested Reshmi Gupta, a Standard XI student of a girls' school in Howrah, suspecting that she might also have a role in entire episode.'' Interestingly, ``Once when Ray told Reshmi that he loved her,'' say police, she told Ray that ``it's not possible as long as Chakraborty is alive,'' and the police think that might have a role in ``buttressing Ray's plan to do in Chakraborty.'' However, investigations are on in this direction, Purokayasta said.

Chakraborty was asked to come to an obscure place in Howrah Bridge at 9 pm on Tuesday and told that ``the problemwould be settled once and for all.'' On the way, he took along his friend Rudra Porui, who was also thrown into the river with Chakraborty by Ray's friends.