Uttar Pradesh: Sons and daughter kept dead mother 'alive' for 5 months to enjoy pension

In a shocking incident, five sons and an unmarried daughter of a 70-year-old lady kept her body in the house for the last five months to continue splurging on her Rs 40,000 pension in Varanasi district of Uttar Pradesh.

The incident came to light when residents of Awas Vikas Colony in Durgakund under Bhelupur Police Station called up the police on Wednesday afternoon about unbearable foul stench emanating from the house of Amravati Devi.

Amravati's husband had retired as Superintendent from Custom department and died a few years ago. The widow was living with her five sons Ravi Prakash, Jyoti Prakash, Girish Prakash, Yogeshwar Prakash, Dev Prakash and an unmarried daughter.

She was getting Rs 40,000 as pension after her husband’s death. The amount was being largely spent to take care of families of her sons who are mostly employed, except for one who was a practicing lawyer but not earning much.

When police forced its entry into the house, they were shocked to find the body of the elderly lady with foul stench spread all over the house and locality. Residents claimed that she was admitted in the BHU Hopsital in 2017 and had died on January 13 but her sons kept on lying that she was alive and bed-ridden.

Few days after her death, four of her sons left the house along with their families while Ravi Prakash and her sister Vijay Lakshmi stayed back with her body. “Whenever we would inquire about his mother, he would politely reply that she has become weak and unable to walk, while she was already dead,” pointed Chedi Lal, a neighbour.

Shockingly, the police also recovered some chemicals from the house which was  applied on deceased’s body to embalm it. But the body was found beyond recognition as they used wrong chemicals for embalming which are not easily available in the market. Despite recovery of the body, Ravi Prakash and his sister kept on insisting that their mother was alive and resisted move to sent the body for the post mortem. 

However, later Ravi Praksh admitted before the SP City Dinesh Kumar that their mother had died about five months ago but they did not disclose her death to continue taking her monthly pension by using her thumb impression as they had no other source of survival. “The pension would have stopped had we announced her death and cremated the body. Since we are unemployed and have no source of income to run our families, we decided to keep her alive to continue getting the pension for our survival,” admitted Ravi Prakash.

“A case has been registered and the body has been sent for the post mortem examination to ascertain cause and timing of death. We have also launched a search to detain her four sons for questioning. The Custom department has been informed about her death,” said the SP City.  “We are shocked and baffled as to how could sons be so greedy to keep her mother’s body at home for five months to enjoy her pension benefits,” said Ramesh Chandra, a resident of the locality.