Soumitra Nandi
Kolkata: In what can be called a straight- lift scene from Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece "Psycho", the Shakespeare Sarani  police station on Thursday stumbled across a man who has been living with the corpse of his sister and two dead dogs for the past six months in south Kolkata.

Police came across the skeletons while investigating the death of septuagenarian Arabinda De, the owner of the house whose charred body was found inside a bathroom on Wednesday evening at his Robinson Street residence.

The police had reached the south Kolkata residence after getting a fire call. The interrogation of Partha 44, the son of  Arabinda De led to the starting discovery  of the skeletons.

"We recovered Arabinda'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," said Deputy Commissioner of Kolkata Police (south division) Murli Dhar Sharma.

"During interrogation,  he told us that the skeleton of his sister Debjani, who died nearly six months earlier, was in the house. He also told us that Debjani was depressed due to the death of their pet dogs and started fast unto death that ultimately led to her sad demise.

An officer investigating the case further said that prima facie, it appears Partha is "mentally unstable and refused to cremate his sister or dispose of the dead dog". The sleuths have also got vital clues that suggest  that Partha used to feed the skeleton.” We are seeking help from medical experts to ascertain Partha’s mental status,” said the officer.

Besides the maggot-infested skeletons, police also recovered audio CDs containing some voices and 'spooky' music.

"The voice that was found in the music playing in the house belongs to an American evangelist," said an investigating officer.  
Partha had sealed off the windows of his room with cellotape and covered Debjani's skeleton with a blanket to prevent the smell of the decomposing body from spreading out. The skeletons were sent for autopsy on Thursday and a forensic team also visited the house to collect samples.

A suicide letter purportedly written by Arabinda was also found.
"The letter was dated June 8, which means he was planning the suicide for some time,” Sharma told the Journospy.

 According to police sources, Aurobindo Dey was director at Alfred Herberts in Bangalore from where he retired in 1987. He came to Robinson Street in 1989. His wife died in 2005. Partha and Debjani both were B. Tech. Debjani was music teacher at a reputed city school but left her job in 2007.

According to her neighbours, the Dey family was introvert and seemed to be suffering from a sense of depression. Both siblings were unmarried and Partha had left his job with the Tata Consultancy Services in 2007.
Psychologists called it a case of delusion and attributed Partha's inability to accept reality to be behind the bizarre incident.

Partha was produced before the Bankshal court and remanded to Gobra Mental Health Hospital as per the order of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate.

In Hitchcock's 1960 psychological thriller "Psycho", protagonist Norman Bates was  trapped in the persona of his mother, whom he had murdered alongside her lover out of jealousy. Guilty over her death, and wanting to delete it from his mind, Bates exhumed her corpse and began to treat it as if she were alive again.