Mamata Banerjee’s niece found dead at home in Bengal’s Birbhum

Family says she was battling depression

While the cause of her death is yet to be ascertained, her family said the young woman had been battling depression for the past few years and was receiving medical treatment for the same.

Speaking to mediapersons, her father Nihar Mukherjee said, “She was suffering from depression for the last few years. We took her to a doctor, too. In the morning when she was not coming down from her room, we went up and saw her hanging from the ceiling fan.”

Bristy was also fighting a divorce case with her husband.

Her mother, Pampa Mukherjee told the media, “Her marriage did not work out. They (her family) frequently sent her back here. We had filed for a divorce. We are shattered now…”

Besides, Bristy Mukherjee was also among those who lost their jobs — as a non-teaching staff member of the Bolpur Upper Primary School — in March 2023 after the Supreme Court scrapped recruitment orders for teachers in state government-aided schools in the alleged ‘cash-for-jobs’ case. Nearly 26,000 teaching and non-teaching staffers were dismissed.

The appointments were initially struck down by the Calcutta High Court and later upheld by the Supreme Court.

While the family had earlier claimed she had resigned from her job on health grounds, it was later revealed that her name had surfaced in the alleged illegal recruitment case.

The case stems from the alleged 2016 School Service Commission ‘cash-for-jobs’ scam, a major alleged corruption scandal during Mamata Banerjee’s 15-year tenure. Then education minister Partha Chatterjee, party MLAs and senior officials were arrested in the case.