Kolkata: Man mummifies mother's body, keeps it in freezer for three years to withdraw her pension

A 45-year old man was detained by the Kolkata police on Thursday, after he was found to have preserved his mother’s body in a refrigerator for the past three years, according to media reports. [caption id=“attachment_2735356” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] The man, identified as Subhabrata Majumdar, a leather technologist had preserved his mother Bina Majumdar’s body at home after she passed away in 2015. Majumdar applied ‘mummification’ techniques to preserve her body in a commercial freezer used to store ice-cream and frozen food in stores, Hindustan Times reported. He was detained after the police received a tip-off. His father Gopal, who too lives at the house, is also being questioned, the report added. According to the police, his son had preserved his mother’s body to keep withdrawing her pension. Speaking to News18, a senior police officer said, “This is a heinous crime. Initially, her son told us that he loved his mother so much that he didn’t want to part with her. Later, he changed his statement and said that he did this to get her pension as he was unemployed. There are many contradictions in this matter. We are looking at why he kept her body for nearly three years”. According to DNA, Subhabrata had also managed to get a living certificate for his mother and had been withdrawing her pension of Rs 50,000 per month from a bank. The matter came to light when the neighbours got suspicious when a high-tonnage air conditioning machine was installed in the vacant first floor of Majumdar’s house. The machine used to run all the time which forced the neighbours to register a complaint with the police, Financial Express reported. According to Zee News, police also recovered another freezer, big enough to fit a body. The cops are probing and making attempts to find out if the second one was meant to store his father’s body after his death.