Woman died of starvation 5 months ago, body lay at home

Bangalore, Aug 21: Blame the fast moving life or lack of responsibility toward neighbours, no one cared to find the whereabouts of Sheela Reddy, unless there was a stink emanating from her house and her brother broke open the door, only to find her dead.

That was not all, half her body had turned into a skeletan and the rest was putrefying. Of what the police and the neighbours figured, the woman died of starvation.

Ironically, the woman's relatives lived close-by in Thippasandra, but nobody cared to visit her for six months. A spinster, she lived alone in the Balaji Nilaya, a two-storey bungalow close to the ESI hospital of the 12th main road of posh Indiranagar for the past many years. While the police was informed about the death by her brother Shankar Reddy who had come to call upon her on Monday evening, only to find her remains in the house.

However, more surprising was how the police reacted to a stench emanating from the house four months ago. "During the time of May assembly elections, stink came out of the house. Suspecting something had gone wrong, we called the police but they said that it must be some dead dog and dismissed it. We never thought it would have been a dead body as we assumed she had not been living in that house for a long time," said a neigbour.

Neighbors found Sheela as a very lonely person who did not allow many people in her house, except a few of her relatives. She was often spotted taking a walk around the area. "WE did observe that she was missing, but thought that she might not be living here anymore," said another neighbor.

"We had to break open the doors and there was heavy stench emanating from the house. The body was in a decayed state and only the skeleton of one half of the body remained. Our initial assessment is that she died at least 4-5 months ago," said an Indiranagar police officer.

OneIndia News