KOLKATA: A 50-year-old leather technician was detained by Kolkata Police on Wednesday night after he was found living with his mother’s mummified dead body over the past three years.
According to a preliminary investigation, Subhabrata Majumdar had applied mummification techniques to preserve the body of his mother Bina Majumdar in a freezer at the first floor of their two-storied house in southern Kolkata’s Behala since her death on April 7, 2015. Internal organs were removed and preserved in formaldehyde.
Subhabrata and his father Gopal lived in the ground floor whereas the freezer operated 24x7 in the first floor.
The incident came to light after neighbours got suspicious of a high-tonnage air conditioning machine running 24x7 in the vacant ground floor and alerted the police.
A second commercial freezer – although not plugged to power -- was found in the same floor of the house. Besides Subhabrata, Gopal Majumdar is also being questioned.
Both Gopal and Bina are retired employees of the Food Corporation of India (FCI). Subhabrata worked at a leather firm but quit his job five years ago reasons of which are yet to be unearthed. Neighbours have told the police that Subhabrata remained aloof since then.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Behala) Nilanjan Biswas told media that a theory has emerged of Subhabrata preserving the dead body of his mother to continue receiving her pension.
However, he added that solid evidence is yet to be found to establish this theory.
However, investigators are raising questions over the second freezer and its utility, suspecting that it might have been bought in advance to preserve the dead body of Gopal Majumdar after his death so that Subhabrata could enjoy the pensions of both the deceased parents, sources revealed.
The incident bears an eerie semblance to the 2015 Robinson Street skeleton case in which 46-year-old software engineer Partha De spent six months with the dead bodies of her elder sister Debjani and her two pet labrador dogs.
Partha and Debjani’s father Aurobindo too lived in their ancestral house and Partha ran the air conditioner full blast 24x7 to mute the smell of the decomposing bodies.
While the lid was blown after Aurobindo immolated himself in the bathroom in 2015, Partha followed suit and killed himself the same way in February 2017.