Bizarre! Kolkata family lives with 82-year-old’s corpse for 2 days
Kolkata:
The
family
of
an
octogenarian
woman
was
found
living
with
her
body
for
more
than
two
days
after
she
died
in
an
eerie
rerun
of
what
the
same
family
did
five
months
ago
when
her
son,
Debashis
Chatterjee,
died
in
the
same
house
in
Kolkata's
Behala.
Chhaya
Chatterjee
(82)
died
on
the
floor
of
her
room
some
time
on
Thursday
or
Friday
at
the
family's
Sarsuna
flat,
her
bed-ridden
octogenarian
husband
Rabindranath
and
daughter
Nilanjana
continued
with
their
daily
routine
in
the
same
room.
As
per
police
they
kept
the
corpse
without
cremating
it
or
informing
either
neighbours
or
relatives,
The
Times
of
India
reported.
The incident was brought to light only when the neighbours informed police about an "unbearable stench" from the Chatterjee household and Nilanjana told them that her mother had died two days back.
Behala DC told the daily that Chhaya was believed to have died 36 to 48 hours before the police were informed. "Just like in February, Nilanjana and Rabindranath failed to inform anyone about the death this time too," the Behala DC was quoted as saying by TOI.
Neighbours said the family had kept doors and windows of their flat shut to keep the foul smell from escaping. They also told police that the family had stopped eating for over one-and-a-half days.
Earlier in February, the semi-decomposed body of the woman's son was recovered from the same flat. The body was 47-year-old Debashis Chatterjee was also discovered three days after his death.
That time too the neighbours had dialled police after foul smell from the house. The police then recovered the body of the woman's son and discovered that the family of three had been living with it for the past two days.
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"The family never interacted with the neighbours. We suspect they all suffer from some sort of mental illness," Sudhir Pal told Hindustan Times.
Every day was a battle for survival for the Chatterjees.
On the day the 82-year-old's body was discovered, a look at the kitchen suggested that it hadn't been used in a long time.
The family was surviving on Rabindranath's retirement benefits. Rabindranath would step outside to get things from the market but he was bed-ridden a month back. It was Chhaya who would cook for the family. As long as she could.
A neighbour of the Chatterjees said there is no one to even draw cash from the bank and added that their relatives were sending them packaged food, TOI said.
As she held a black and white photograph of her mother, Nilanjana told the daily that her mother was very ill and they could not afford her treatment.
Claiming to have studied till BSc first-year, Nilanjana says she now wants to work and earn to take care of her father.
DC Biswas, meanwhile, said police were contacting NGOs to get community support for the father-daughter duo. Cops from Sarsuna police station have also made monetary contributions. "We will ensure that the postmortem is completed and the cremation is held at the earliest," an officer said.