Kolkata’s horror house: Diary reveals dark secrets

Kolkata: A day after the Shakespeare Sarani police recovered the charred body of an elderly person and skeletons of his 47-year old daughter and two pet dogs from a house on Robinson Street, the police recovered some diaries of Partha De, the deceased’s son, which have revealed some dark secrets of the De family. In fact, these jottings have given a whole new dimension to the entire sordid saga that has emerged from 3 Robinson Street.

At one place, for instance, Partha wrote that his elder sister Debjani was becoming increasingly attractive, independent and powerful and their mother Arati was jealous of her. At another place, he wrote that when they went to Digha for a family vacation, their mother forced Debjani to undress. He also wrote that his mother suspected him to be sexually inadequate and she sent maid servants to his room so that he could establish physical relationships with them. In yet another entry, he wrote that “whatever we did we did in our senses and with 100 per cent mutual willingness”. The police suspects that members of the De family were involved in an incestuous relationship. The police is planning to interrogate Partha with these diaries on Saturday.

On Friday, deputy commissioner (south) Murlidhar Sharma as well as a homicide team of the Kolkata police again visited the second-floor dwelling of the De family. After another round of search, the police found three mobilephones. A study of the call details is likely to help the police find some vital missing links of the jigsaw puzzle that the “house of horrors” has thrown up.

Among several strange objects, the police also discovered a few letters apparently written by different members of the family. However, since these letters or rather small notes were unsigned, it was difficult to know who had written them. One note said in a self-pitying mood: “Is this the life I had wanted?” Another note said: “Have faith in God.” The recovery of these notes has forced the police to think whether the members of the De family did not speak to each other and communicated with each other through written notes.

The post-mortem report of 77-year Arabinda revealed that he committed suicide. However, the preliminary post-mortem report of the autopsy of Debjani’s skeleton has not categorically proved that her death was caused by starvation. During his interrogation on Thursday, Partha had told the police that after the death of their pet dogs in August 2014, his elder sister had virtually stopped eating as a result of which she died in December. He also told the police that Debjani had started fasting to ward off the evil spirit, which had come to haunt their house.

Although Partha told the police that his sister died around six months ago, his uncle and aunt, living next door, the security guards, the newspaper vendor and the tenant had not seen Debjani in the past few years.