Kolkata man lives with sister's corpse for 6 months

Norman Bates became a part of cinematic history when Alfred Hitchcock released his genre-bending film, Psycho, in 1960. Bates, a motel owner in small town America, would take care of the skeleton of his long-dead mother for years. Partha De of Kolkata is not much different, who took care of her elder sister Debjani’s decomposed body for six months.

Not much unlike Bates, Partha would serve food to his dead sister and her two dead dogs. And just like Bates, he would get angry if someone questioned his motives. Since no one other than his 77-year-old father Aurobindo knew about his rather horrific preoccupation, he would often get into altercation with his aging father. The morbid fascination of the 44-year-old man came to light on Thursday when the police received complaints about a fire from the De house.

When they reached, the police found Aurobindo’s charred body. Delving deeper, they found the skeletal remains of a woman, along with the skeletons of two dogs. Although the police are yet to find any foul play, they were horrified with Partha’s strange fascination with his dead sister, who passed away six months ago. “We recovered Aurobindo’s charred body from the house and sent it for post-mortem examination. Since it was a case of unnatural death, we posted two constables outside the house. They found Partha behaving suspiciously which raised doubts,” deputy commissioner (Detective Department) Murli Dhar said.

 The deputy commissioner further said that after interrogating Partha they got to know about the three skeletons lying in the house. “He also told us that Debjani was depressed due to the death of their two pet dogs in a period of two months and stopped eating, which eventually led to her death. We’ve recovered Debjani’s skeletons and the remains of a dog. We’ve sent the remains for autopsy to ascertain the cause of death,” he said. The police are also looking into the father's death, although prima facie it seems he immolated himself.  Senior police officials said that Aurobindo seems to have committed suicide in the bathroom on Wednesday night after failing to make his wayward son see reality. “Partha appears to be mentally unstable. Evidence suggests he used to feed the skeletons.

Partha, a B Tech graduate had set up a sound system and used to play records of American evangelists, police said.