KOLKATA: It’s been three days since his son
Subhabrata was taken away by the police for preserving his deceased wife Bina’s body for three years. Tired of all the curiosity that the macabre goings-on at his home has elicited, 89-year-old Gopal
Chandra Majumdar now wants to be left alone. All of Saturday, he confined himself to a room on the second floor of his house on S N
Chatterjee Road at
Behala, away from probing questions and inquisitive stares from neighbours, media and the police.
The strains of running around the Behala police station and the morgue showing, the retired vigilance officer at Food Corporation of India did not even seem keen on sitting in his favourite chair on the balcony. He, in fact, appeared angry when TOI tried to speak to him. “I do not know much, I have already told you,” Majumdar said.
Unlike the past 48 hours, the police had left the house and even his relatives were not around. Instead, he had a new domestic help, who turned out to be a blessing, efficiently managing the kitchen, buying essentials and patiently answering the door—the bell never seemed to stop ringing—explaining, Majumdar needed to rest. She said the relatives had promised to return as soon as Majumdar learnt when Bina’s body would be handed over to them. “Dadu is waiting impatiently for the police to call. But there has been no call from the Behala police station yet,” she told TOI. The cops stationed at the house earlier were withdrawn but an officer from the Behala police station promised to send some personnel at night. Ruma Chakraborty, Majumdar’s relative who had accompanied him to the police station and the morgue on Friday, said she too was unwell to visit the Behala house now. “But I will be there as soon as the cops say they are ready to hand over mashi’s body. I didn’t visit him today but I am in touch. If required, I will go to ensure he gets his food on time,” she said.
The three-storey house’s collapsible gate, which had been carefully locked over the past two days, remained open. Majumdar prayed to be left alone, but he could do little to stop complete strangers from peeping into the ground floor of the house, where “that fridge with the body” was kept. Neighbours could no longer be seen hanging around but TOI found strangers, parking their cars by the road, and checking out the house, matching it with the photographs in newspapers that they carried. “We are on our way to office in Pailan. We usually take DH Road but could not control our curiosity to take a look at the house,” said
Rajeev Khaitan, an entrepreneur at
Burrabazar.
The police said they would meet Majumdar to clear up three issues: fix the identity of the help who worked at their household when the two industrial freezers were bought, the pension that was withdrawn by the couple before Bina’s death and crosscheck Subhabrata’s claim that
Bina, too, believed in the “science of preserving body” and had said she was willing to be part of the project. “But we may talk to him after the cremation. Given his age, we have to allow him more space and time to let him come out of the shock,” said an officer.
