KOLKATA: A 46-year-old man carved out his mother’s body after her death, stuffed the parts inside a giant refrigerator and then sealed up the ground-floor room with two air-conditioners, making a tomb for his mom in the heart of a middle-class
Behala neighbourhood, where he went on living with the body — and his 89-year-old dad — for almost three years to the day.
A post-midnight police raid on Thursday, after a tip-off from neighbours and a local news channel, brought to light yet another house of horrors existing in Kolkata, three years after cops unearthed one on Robinson Street where Partho De — also in his mid-40s — stayed with the bodies of his sister and two pet dogs for six months before being outed.
Cops arrested Subhabrata Majumdar and questioned his ailing dad, Gopal Chandra Majumdar, but the answers they got were as confounding as the questions. Subhabrata told cops that he believed his mother could be brought back to life; his dad said he “just went along” with his son.
Investigators, however, are also looking at a financial angle after recovering a “living certificate” from the Majumdars’ home and neighbourhood rum-ours that Subhabrata went on withdrawing his mother’s pension even after her death in 2015. Officials said they had sought help from a nationalised bank’s New Alipore branch and would want to know whether Subhabrata went on presenting his mother’s thumb impression to draw the monthly pension of around Rs 30,000.
The exact motive may be known only after a more detailed probe but cops were unanimous on one point: Subhabrata appeared much saner than Robinson Street’s De. Unlike De, who let his sister’s and pet dogs’ bodies rot, Subhabrata — a graduate in leather technology — used his college education, clinically freezing his mother’s body for almost exactly three years in such a way that the neighbourhood got no whiff of what was inside the ground-floor room. He also employed the services of “doms” (who handle bodies at morgues and crematoriums) to carve out internal organs for better preservation.
His 84-year-old mother, Bina Majumdar, passed away at 9.55am on April 7, 2015, the death — according to the certificate issued by the Behala Balananda Brahmachari Hospital — hav-ing been caused by “severe hypoglycaemia” (a dip in blood-sugar levels). The body was brought back to the family’s James Long Sarani home, near the Gholsapur Railway Colony, the same day.
The script veered away from the normal and deviated tow-ards the macabre from this point. Cops said on Thursday they had found a cut mark on Bina’s body, suggesting it might have been slashed and the pancreas and the intestines taken out for better preservation.
Drew inspiration from TV documentary, says son
A forensic team that visited the residence later in the evening confirmed having found certain “separated body parts”.
Cops initially detained Subhabrata for questioning, during which the latter said he was certain his mother would return to life. His father, Gopal, was less consistent and went on changing his statement. “But we have allowed him to stay back at his residence as he is ill,” deputy commissioner of police (Behala) Nilanjan Biswas said. “He seemed to know about his son’s plans,” he added. The forensic team picked up evidence, including chemicals like formalin that were used to preserve Bina’s body.
Interrogators said Subhabrata claimed that one of his cousins was aware of what was going on. He told cops he was inspired to take this route after he and his mother watched a documentary on the subject on Discovery channel just before her death.
Deputy commissioner Biswas, who led the raid, said the Behala police station received a call around 1.30 a.m. on Thursday. “A team visited the residence. Subhabrata and Gopal came out but denied anything with practised confidence. We searched the ground floor and found a freezer with a body stuffed inside,” Biswas said.
Subhabrata went to a popular south Kolkata English-medium school and then did his graduation from the
Central Leather Research Institute in Tangra. He worked at a leather firm but then resigned to start his own business. He did not succeed in this enterprise and, for some time, dabbled in other business like selling old cars.
Gopal retired as a deputy manager from the vigilance wing of the Food Corporation of India. The law graduate started private practice after retirement but quit about five years ago. Bina, too, retired as a senior manager from the
FCI. The Majumdars have been residing at their Behala house for more than three decades.
Neighbours like Chanchal Chakraborty said they were aware of Bina’s death. “She passed away one morning and we saw a hearse arrive. But no one was asked to go to the crematorium and no one saw the body being brought back to the house. We suspected something amiss about one-and-a-half years ago, when huge air-conditioners were installed, but did not meddle in their affairs,” he explained.
Neighbours also claimed that the father-son relation had deteriorated about 15 years ago when Subhabrata had wanted to marry a cousin. “Subhabrata used to stay away at night. He would visit the house with food but, on most occasions, would leave after serving dinner to his dad,” a neighbour said. The police, though, insisted there was no proof he was married.
A team of psychiatrists will carry out a psycho-analysis of Subhabrata. Cops will also question the cousin, the two doms and the doctor who issued the death certificate.
Representative Image
