Mentally ill woman found staying in house with mother's body

The decomposed body of Vinod Gupta (80) was discovered from her residence in Saket D-Block yesterday afternoon after a DJB employee, who came there to check the water meter, became suspicious and informed police. A police team came to the spot and knocked the door but there was no response.

After sometime, police broke open the door only to sense a foul smell emanating from the room and find a woman, later identified as Shalini, the deceased's daughter, sitting there, a senior police official said.

"Then we found a decomposed body on the bed which was identified as that of her mother. We asked the woman about it but she did not speak. She did not tell anything. She appeared to be mentally challenged," the official said.

"There were parts of bones and flesh. The body was badly decomposed. We collected the body parts and took them to AIIMS for post-mortem," the official said. The deceased was also found wearing socks. It appears that she died a few months ago, the official said it was surprising that none of the neighbours could find out about the death earlier.

The official said they were awaiting the post-mortem report to ascertain when she died and the cause of death. Prima facie, he said, it did not appear that there was any foul play in the incident. Shalini is a divorcee and has been suffering from mental illness.

Shalini, who got divorced from her husband who is an IT professional, was staying with her mother for the past eight years. Police have also informed another daughter of the deceased who is presently residing in Bangalore.

The official said the DJB employee who came for checking found no response to the knocking of the door and then he found some foul smell emanating from the house. The deceased used to stay in her ground floor residence.

"He then informed some neighbours who called police. If not for him, we would not have come to know about this," the official said. The deceased's husband P L Gupta died a few years ago.