Woman,daughters plunge to death from city highrise

Police said Anita Mukhopadhyay (70) and her daughters,Mukuta Mukhopadhyay (35) and Kheya Mukhopadhyay (30),who resided at the Golf Green Apartments — which is not a highrise — came to the nearby South City apartment in the evening. They parked their car at the visitors parking lot and went up to the 33rd floor. They then walked up to the terrace of the 35th floor,broke open the lock and accessed the terrace. A suicide note has also been recovered from the terrace along with a received copy of a letter in which they had donated all their property to Rabindra Bharati University.

After the police team from Jadavpur police station reached the spot,sleuths from Detective Department,too,reached the place to probe the incident.

“Two days ago,Anita’s husband Nihar Mukhopadhyay,who was ailing,had died. It is probably out of grief that they decided to end their lives,” said Special Police Commissioner (Crime) Shivaji Ghosh. Police are also probing how the 70-year-old woman walked up to 35th floors’ terrace and their link to the university to which they have donated their property.

A police team visited Rabindra Bharati University and found out that Kheya and Mukuta had met top officials of the university on August 23,expressing their willingness to donate their property to the university and wanted to do it fast.

“They were told it was not an easy process and would take some time to confirm if there were other shareholders of the property. They were asked to visit the BT Road Campus. On August 29,they again visited the university with the application,a received copy of which was recovered from the terrace of the building,” said police.

There are 461 flats in the 35-floor South City Apartment and police resorted to public announcement to ask the owners if the trio had visited any of the apartments. Many flats are owned by the NRIs and are closed. Police visited each flat and opened the closed flat with masterkey.

Mukherjee’s neighbours said the family used to be very reserved. “As far as I know,Mukuta used to work with an NGO and Kheya used to teach table tennis. Both were unmarried. They appeared completely normal,” said a 40-year-old neighbour.