Bengaluru physio kills mom, goes to cops with body in suitcase

BENGALURU: A 35-year-old physiotherapist had her 71-year-old mother pop '30 BP tablets' after one of their frequent bouts of bickering, strangled her to death as she lay unconscious in their flat here on Monday, stuffed the 40kg body into a suitcase, took it to cops in an auto-rickshaw and said: "I have killed my mother ... the body is in the suitcase."
The confession of Sonali Sen - herself the mother of a seven-year-old son - drew gasps of disbelief even from take-no-prisoner cops for whom murder probes are routine assignments. Sub-inspector Sanjeev Kumar of Mico Layout police station, whom Sonali approached first, was one of the many who "struggled to make sense of it all". "We watched anxiously as the suitcase was opened. Inside was an old lady's body," a cop said, recalling Sonali calmly stood near the door of Kumar's chamber and saw the scene unfold. Kumar then called an ambulance, sent Biya Pal's body for autopsy and lodged an FIR.
Sonali's family members were unaware of the matricide unfolding in one of the rooms in the flat. Her husband Subrotosh was away at work while her son and mother-in-law were in the other room.
Sonali told police that after strangling Pal, she sat next to the body for an hour and decided to surrender. Taking Pal's suitcase, she placed a picture of her mother in it and stuffed the body into it after folding the legs and hands.
Sonali, Subrotosh, their son and her mother-in-law had been living in the apartment since 2017. Pal, who lived in Kolkata earlier, moved in with them in 2018. Fights with her mother and mother-in-law were an everyday affair, Sonali said.
On Sunday night, Pal, apparently overcome with frustration, told Sonali that she preferred death over such an unhappy life. She kept up the refrain the next morning. Furious, Sonali reportedly handed over the tablets to Pal, asked "her to swallow it in one go and watched in silence" as Pal popped all. "She fell on the bed and was semi-conscious. I thought she would die. She was breathing, but it was laboured. Finally, I took my dupatta and strangled her," Sonali told police.