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.

"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.