Kolkata / Man, daughter live with corpse for 3 days in South Kolkata

The body of an octogenarian woman suspected to have died three days ago was recovered from a flat in south Kolkata, West Bengal, by the Police. Her husband and daughter were living with the corpse in the same room, preliminary investigation revealed.

“The body had started to decompose. The neighbours informed us after getting a foul smell from the flat,” said an officer at Sarshuna police station on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media. The deceased, Chhaya Chatterjee, lived with her husband and daughter Nilanjana.

Only five months ago the semi-decomposed body of the woman’s son, 56-year-old Dipanjan Chatterjee, was recovered from the same flat, three days after his death. That time too it was the neighbours who informed the police. “The family never interacted with the neighbours. We suspect they all suffer from some sort of mental illness,” said Sudhir Pal a local resident.

The family lives in an apartment in a four-storied building on Rakhal Chatterjee Street.

Another neighbour, Nupur Ghosal, said members of the family appeared disoriented for a long time and recently even stopped cooking. “A relative used to send food to them every day,” said Ghosal. A police officer said when the officers spoke to the deceased woman’s husband and daughter, both of them gave incoherent statements.