Kolkata: In an upscale locality in Kolkata, a 77-year old dead woman kept rotting on a wooden cupboard, infested with maggots for 18 days while her 38-year-old son waited for the completion of 21-days cycle and that auspicious moment to bury his mother in the house.
This is the fourth bizarre incident reported in three years after Robinson Street, Paikpara and the Behala freezer cases.
The horror story unfolded when the son Maitreya Bhattacharya from the upscale Salt Lake region approached a man for help to bury his mother who in turn informed his relative a CID officer.
The officer immediately informed the Bidhannagar Police on Sunday and around 10pm just two hours after the call was made, Police arrived at Maitreya’s father a former neurosurgeon’s house who has passed away under mysterious circumstances in 2013.
The Police sent the body for autopsy while took Maitreya along with them for interrogation, TOI reports.
The dead woman was Krishna Bhattacharya wife of Dr. Gorachand Bhattacharya, a neurosurgeon at the state’s premier government-run health institute, SSKM Hospital.
Krishna used to teach in girls school in Bhowanipore till her retirement and had died 18 days ago but her son Maitreyi unwilling to let go of her mother until the cycle is completed.
When interrogated, Maitreya explained: “I was waiting for it to rot for three more days and would have buried her at our home after the 21-day cycle was complete.”
He says he had “learned this ritual was auspicious according to the doctrine” in which he and his mother believed in.
When TOI asked neighbors in the locality of Maitreya’s father’s death one of them replied: “The youth’s father, too, died under mysterious circumstances. Some said he set himself on fire while others said his clothes had accidentally caught fire while he was lighting a lamp during a puja at home.”
“We have started a case of unnatural death and are awaiting the preliminary post-mortem report to find out when and how his mom died,” said Bidhannagar deputy commissioner (headquarters) Amit Javalgi.
Maitreya claimed he was a science graduate and left his Masters halfway when he heard about his father’s death.
“I went to an acquaintance’s Beadon Street house for help in finding labourers who could dig a grave in our courtyard. But the man didn’t help me and called the cops instead,” Maitreya told.
When the Beadon Street resident, Tarun Talukdar, also Gorachand’s patient, was approached he said he was taken aback by his Maitreya’s bizarre request and immediately called up one of his relatives, a CID officer.
According to neighbours, the family chose to stay alone never really liked to socialize.
The son – Maitreya also showed traits of “being schizophrenic” while his mother shut herself out from the world after her husband’s death added another neighbor.
An officer working on the case said: “He has not been arrested and he seems to have no kin. So he is staying back at the police station.”