By IANS
New Delhi : Three sisters, battling unemployment and poverty, went foodless for two weeks and one of them died of starvation. Their travails might have gone on but for a neighbour’s call to police that forced them out of their south Delhi home Saturday.
The matter came to light Saturday morning, when police barged into their Kalkaji A Block home, after their neighbours complained of foul smell emanating from the house.
The police asked its occupants, the Bali sisters – Dolly, 43, Poonam, 41, and Neeru, 30 – to open the front door to the flat.
But after receiving no response despite knocking on the door for 15 minutes, the police decided to break the door open.
“On the third hammer strike on the gate, Dolly came near the door and requested us not to damage it. But she again refused to allow us inside the house, which was stinking badly,” Ombir Singh, a police official investigating the matter, told IANS.
“On her refusal, we decided to use the hammers again. As we hit the doors twice more, Dolly opened the door and allowed us inside, but she objected when we tried to examine the house to find the source of the foul smell.”
But the policemen insisted. Then, to their utter shock, they found Neeru’s decomposed body on the bed while Poonam was barely alive and could not move.
“After entering the bedroom we found Neeru’s stinking and swollen body. It seemed that she had died at least five days ago, possibly due to starvation,” Singh said.
“When we asked Dolly about the matter, she was unable to speak and was gasping for breath. She pleaded with us for food by making signs. When the neighbours brought the food, she snatched it and munched in such a fashion that it was clear she had not eaten for several days,” the official said.
The neighbours along with police rushed the surviving sisters to a private nursing home, where Poonam’s condition was stated to be critical. Dolly, who was showing recovery signs, had suffered a mental trauma.
Neeru’s body was sent for post mortem examination to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
“The sisters never kept in touch with neighbours and used to prefer staying inside their home. We had not seen them for the past few months,” said one of their neighbours, requesting not to be named.
“The sisters steadily became more and more unapproachable after the death of their parents 12 years ago. We never saw any of their relative visiting them,” the neighbour said.
Police said initial investigations revealed that Poonam had been the sole breadwinner for the sisters after the death of their parents. She lost her job six months ago.
“She was a lecturer with a polytechnic institute in south Delhi. She was staying at home with her two sisters after being forced to quit. Till now we haven’t found any other source of income for them,” Singh said.
Police were expecting more details after talking to the sisters. “We are ourselves shocked, but are waiting for the sisters’ statements to reach any conclusion,” the official added.