3 days after he died, body of teenager found at Ghaziabad home; kin suffered from mental illness, say cops

The house in Ghaziabad’s Chandernagar is a ground-floor flat that looks like it’s been abandoned. Its entrance is an iron door that has rarely been opened. When police came to check, they found cobwebs all around. Inside, two rooms were filled with heaps of garbage — empty plastic bottles, dirty clothes, half-empty food packets, rotten vegetables — and a stench. The only functional object is a large maroon colour wall clock: its arms running perfectly on time.

“A neighbour called and told us about the smell,” said Station House Officer, Link Road, Priti Singh. “When we reached, (we found) a heart-wrenching (sight).”

Police said they had to break into the house because despite knocking, nobody answered. “It took us an hour to convince the family that we were there to help them,” SHO Singh said.

“Inside, we saw a woman wiping the face and body of a boy with a wet cloth. She repeatedly said her son was asleep. There was a young woman there too, she was the daughter,” she said. “We were confused. We saw the state of the rooms… We kept asking what had happened.”

Police said neighbours didn’t know much. “The family had not been in touch with anybody. The neighbours had not even seen them outside. But they knew who they were and gave us the contact details of the woman’s brother,” said SHO Singh.

Prashant Kumar Jain, a businessman who lives in Delhi’s Chawri Bazar, was contacted. “He came immediately. He told us his sister Komal and her two children have been suffering from schizophrenia for years,” SHO Singh said.

Jain told The Indian Express that he had admitted all three of them to the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS) in Delhi six years ago. “They were there for a month. They needed treatment but it didn’t work out. I had even approached the court about it,” Jain said.

Asked why the family was living alone, Jain said his sister wouldn’t allow him to help. “She would not open the door for anyone. I would come and keep knocking but they wouldn’t answer. She didn’t even allow our mother, who is now dead, to open the door. They felt someone could harm them. That’s why I decided to transfer money into their account so they have enough to feed themselves. I had also requested the neighbours to inform me in case of emergency,” Jain said.

He said his sister’s husband died 12 years ago. “That’s when things started to go downhill.”

Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police, Trans-Hindon (Ghaziabad), Patil Nimish Dasharath told The Indian Express that the autopsy report showed the boy died due to a chronic lung disease.

Police said they have ruled out the possibility of foul play after investigating all aspects carefully. “We looked into every aspect. We even checked if there was any property angle. There is none,” ADCP Dasharath said.

“The family never opened the door as they were scared they would be taken to the hospital. We’re waiting for the cremation to take place, we will take them to a hospital soon,” he said.

A neighbour, Sushma Pandey, said she would try to offer them food sometimes. “They would never open the door,” she said. “They were scared of everyone.”