House horror: Salt Lake man spends 48 hours with mom’s dead body

KOLKATA: In a near-rerun of the Robinson Street incident, a 40-year-old man spent at least two nights with the rotting corpse of his 65-year-old mother at their Salt Lake home. All the while, he performed his daily chores and had dinner at home, before neighbours alerted police about a foul smell emanating from the house. The cops discovered the decomposed body on Sunday morning.

Indrajeet Mukherjee, a newspaper vendor, who claimed himself to be a journalist working with a local newspaper, alleged that he had informed some neighbours about the death of his mother, but none came to his help. “She died on Friday. I had informed some neighbours, but none helped me. I had no money to take her to hospital,” Mukherjee told TOI outside his flat at Karunamoyee Housing Estate on Sunday afternoon.

The cops identified the woman as Ranjana Mukherjee, a widow who had been ill for the past few days. “The man has claimed that his mother died on Saturday night. There are no external injury marks on the body and it looks like a normal death. The man appears to be incoherent in his statements. The body has been sent for postmortem,” said a senior officer of Bidhannagar East police station.

Locals said Indrajeet’s father Jayanta Mukherjee died a year ago and alleged that his son appeared to be mentally ill. TOI found out that Indrajeet only used to distribute paper in Salt Lake homes and the newspaper he claimed to be working for had stopped printing since this June.

Police said Indrajeet came at the Bidhannagar East police station himself around 10am on Sunday and informed that his mother died at his flat. The neighbours also called up at the police station to inform the news about the same time. The woman’s body was sent to Bidhannagar sub divisional Hospital for medical confirmation where the medical officer confirmed the death and subsequently a case of unnatural death was registered, said a police official.

Earlier on Sunday morning, the matter of Ranjana’s death was known after her son Indrajeet informed one of the residents of the apartment, claiming that his mother has been inside his flat and dead for two days. The news spread as the locals informed the matter to the Bidhannagar East police and the body was recovered from inside the flat.

Sunday’s incident came to light, three weeks after a 47-year-old mentally challenged man Anirban Bose, was found living with the corpse of his mother for days at Paikpara in Kolkata.

Residents of the apartment said that nobody of the family used to talk and socialise with anybody in the neighbourhood and that Indrajeet was mentally imbalanced. “Indrajeet’s father Jayanta Mukherjee died very much the same way like his wife last year as the body had to be brought out by the police. Indrajeet is mentally deranged and has always created nuisance in the locality. We only came to know about his mother’s death today morning,” said one of the residents of the apartment, adding that they suspect Ranjana has been inside her flat dead for at least the last two days.