An alarming incident has come to light in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi on the night of 29 November where two daughters lived with their mother’s corpse in a secluded house for nearly a year. Their mother had turned into a skeleton, but the girls didn’t cremate her. She died on 8 December 2022 due to illness because they lacked the resources for her treatment. Their father moved out of the house many years ago.
Afterwards, the deceased was securely concealed inside a quilt by her daughters. Meanwhile, the girls continued to celebrate birthdays and other special occasions at the residence. The mother has been identified as 52-year-old Usha Tripathi and the daughters are 27-year-old Pallavi Tripathi who is a post-graduate and 17 to 18-year-old Vaishnavi Tripathi has passed 10th grade.
The peculiar case pertained to the Madarwa neighbourhood of the Lanka police station. The duo manually removed and disposed of the worms after they had infected the body. When the stench became unbearable they climbed to the roof of the house and ate food there. On 29 November, the local authorities reached the location after learning about the matter, broke the locks on the three doors of the house and entered the place.
The neighbours alerted the relatives of the girls when they didn’t leave the house for several days. They arrived to inquire about the situation, however, were shocked to witness the horrifying scene and immediately notified the police who then removed the skeleton and sent it for postmortem. The woman’s clothes, slippers, sheets, quilts and other things were collected as evidence. The two girls were also brought out of the house and their mental condition is not well, based on the cops.
The neighbours called their aunt (mother’s sister) and her husband Dharmendra’s Chaturvedi who live in Mirzapur. As soon as they opened the door the two girls were found sitting with the corpse in a room after which authorities were summoned right away. The girls created a lot of ruckus and cried when they saw the cops. They took the body in their possession and started interrogating the pair.
The police learned that the woman’s health had deteriorated which ultimately caused her death. Her husband had left the family a long time ago. The daughters stored the body in a room and skipped the final ceremonies since they were short on funds and used things like incense sticks to get rid of the foul smell. The people were unaware of everything because there were no neighbours around the house. The daughters had been using the excuse of their mother’s poor health to send back any relatives that came to visit them for the last year. They refused to let anyone see her mother.
Usha Tripathi was the eldest of the three daughters of Ramakrishna Pandey, a resident of Holpur Rachauli village in Ubhaon police station area of Ballia. She was married to Deveshwar Tripathi of Akhop village, Belthara Road. She moved in with her father along with her two daughters following a disagreement with her spouse after ten years of marriage.
The police station in-charge said that both daughters stated that their mother used to throw up and passed away on 8 December 2022 as a result of illness. The body could not be burned due to financial constraints. The girls are currently under the guardianship of their aunt and uncle. The autopsy is being performed on the latter’s submission.
The daughters informed the police that they had lived off of the house’s possessions for four or five months after the death of their mother. They sold jewellery for Rs 20,000 when the food ran out and bought provisions for themselves. They also spent the cash present at home to cover the expenses and sometimes asked for money from the neighbours. When people asked them about their mother they alleged that her health was not good and she was sleeping. The neighbours didn’t care much and hence no one paid much attention. The daughters were not in contact with the father for the past six years.
The daughters hardly ever left the house, according to their neighbours. They would beg for a 10 lakh rupee loan to restart a cosmetic shop whenever someone showed up. The deceased’s brother-in-law (husband’s brother) Dyaneshwar Tripathi said that she was invited to attend special occasions multiple times and her husband also tried to contact her, but he was driven away and therefore he developed a mental ailment for which he is presently receiving therapy. Their late father Vyas Tripathi was a retired railway guard.
Deputy Commissioner of Police Kashi John RS Gautam also reached the location and spoke to both the girls. The Lanka police station in charge mentioned that the skeleton was found wrapped in a sheet and blanket. It won’t be known until the post-mortem whether the death was caused by natural causes or by homicide.
