35-year-old man kills mother, leaves her body to decompose

In a bizarre incident, a 35-year-old man killed his mother and left her body to decompose in their house at Shibpur in Howrah, police said. Later her body was recovered from a room on Tuesday morning.

Police said the victim identified as Chobi Panja (56) used to stay separate in one room in the house with her son Tapash. They were not in good terms with other residents of the house. 

The youth used to work in a jute mill and later started working as a plumber after the mill was closed. The other residents of the house had not seen his mother for the past few days and the youth used to lock the room from outside while going out to work every morning in the past few days. 

On Monday the local residents got foul smell from the room and they informed the matter to police. 

Policemen from Shibpur police station went to the spot but they didn’t break open the door as there was no such complaint and there had been a legal dispute over the property. The police had tried to contact the youth over phone, but the victim’s son didn’t respond to the calls. 

The foul smell became strong in the evening and the matter was informed to police once again. This time, police contacted the victim’s daughter and son-in-law who stay in Chandernagar. The police broke open the door after the victim’s son-in-law came. 

After entering the room police found the decomposed body of the woman lying in the toilet. Her body was recovered and it was sent to a hospital for post-mortem. 

The youth had left the house on Monday morning and he never returned since then. 

Police said he didn’t return realising that police have recovered the body after getting several phone calls in his mobile phone to which he had not responded.

Police are yet to ascertain the exact reason behind the death of the woman, but they suspect that she was being killed following property related dispute.

A police officer said that it was difficult to understand whether there was any injury marks on her body as it had decomposed. 

Thus the police need to wait for the autopsy report. “But it is quite sure that the woman had died at least three to four days ago,” the officer said. 

The police spoke to the people with whom the youth used to work. But they failed to give any clue about Tapash.