India: Two sisters found living with mother's corpse for a year

Two sisters were found living with the corpse of their mother, who died around a year ago, in a house in Lanka area in Varanasi, reported the 24NewsHD TV channel.

The woman had died in December 2022, but her daughters did not perform her last rites and kept the body locked in a room at the house in Mandarwa locality, the local police said.

Police officers reached the spot after getting information about the incident and initiated a probe.

Lanka Station House Officer (SHO) Shivakant Mishra said Usha Tripathi , 52, resident of Madarwa, Samenghat, died last year after a prolonged illness.

Her husband had left home two years ago and did not come home even after his wife's death while their two daughters -- Pallavi Tripathi, 27, and Vaishvik Tripathi, 18, -- did not cremate the body after their mother's death and kept it locked in the room, he said.

Both of them had not been leaving the house for the last one week and its door remained closed, raising suspicion among the neighbours who knocked the door but when it did not open, they informed the police. 

Police reached the spot based on the information. When the door of the house did not open, police broke open it and entered inside the room only to find the corpse lying there.

Both the daughters were also found sitting in the same room. The police have taken both the daughters into custody and the incident is being investigated.