Worried over son’s health, woman sets herself on fire

KOLKATA: A 65-year-old mother of a terminally ill son chose the lane outside her north Kolkata residence to set herself on fire around 1.15am on Sunday after the entire neighbourhood had gone to sleep. Police came and recovered her mangled mortal remains sometime after the macabre incident, a couple of hours after which her son — suffering from serious renal complications — died at the

Medical College

and Hospital, less than a kilometre from where the mother ended her life.

The quiet neighbourhood that woke up in the wee hours after police jeeps stopped on the lane, remained awestruck the entire day. By afternoon, the

Ramesh Chatterjee Street

looked deserted — only a few curious faces peeped out of their houses nearby. An area on the lane — almost the size of the woman’s body — was cordoned off.

Subhra Chakraborty, the sole earning member of the family, ran a small kerosene shop adjacent to her house on Gopal Bose Lane — a few minutes’ walk from Thanthania Kalibari — after her husband passed away 15 years ago. An introvert

Chakraborty

found it difficult to manage the day-to-day expenditure and healthcare costs for her 34-year-old son Somnath. “Jethima would never share her troubles with us. Rarely would she speak a word or two about her son’s health,” said Juin Dutta Banik, a neignbour. At times, Chakraborty would come and chat with a few of her neighbours and then get back inside her one-storey house. “The only source of happiness for the family was the seven-year-old son of her daughter Chumki. The family went out with the kid at times,” Banik recalled.

Sources said health condition of her son deteriorated a week back after which he was admitted to the Medical College and Hospital.

On Saturday evening, Chumki returned home to tell her mother that the doctors have almost given up all hopes. “I spoke to her around 10 at night and she said that her son was not well. But who could have imagined that she will commit

suicide

,” said

Babai Das

, another neighbour.

After Chumki left for the hospital on Saturday night, Chakraborty came out of her house around 1.15am on Sunday and locked the main door from outside. Prima facie investigations revealed that she walked till Ramesh Chatterjee Street where she poured kerosene on her and used a lighter to set herself afire.

The charred body was first spotted by a local barely 200 metres from her house. Soon, police were informed. The identity could not be established till Chumki went to the Amherst Street police station around 12pm on Sunday to lodge a missing complaint of her mother. She had earlier returned from the hospital around 10.30am after her brother’s death and found the main door locked from outside.

Police asked Chumki to find out if she knew the woman whose face was burnt beyond recognition. “Chumki told us that she identified her mother from her slippers, the door keys she was carrying and the lighter found beside her. It belonged to her brother,” Banik said. Like others in Gopal Bose Lane, she also struggled to figure out how her mother could push herself to such a tragic end.

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