A woman in her 50s who was found unconscious with her daughter in a hotel room on Kyd Street on Wednesday evening was declared dead at a hospital. Her daughter has survived.
Police suspect the mother and the daughter, who had checked into the hotel almost one-and-a-half months ago, had a suicide pact.
A large number of empty medicine strips were found in the room, the police said.
A purported note has been found in an exercise book that said they were ending their life because of financial problems, an officer at New Market police station said.
The officer said the 55-year-old woman and her 34-year-old daughter were residents of Haridevpur. They had left home around four months ago and been living out of hotel rooms since.
The two had checked into the Kyd Street hotel on June 8. They had been paying their room rent and food bills regularly.
"The woman had lost her husband six years ago. Since then they did not have any source of income. The daughter is suffering from an ailment and was reportedly depressed because of that. They had recently sold a property at Gobordanga in North 24-Parganas for Rs 6 lakh," said the officer.
Possibly, they were paying the hotel bills from that money.
“They left their residence four moths back and had been staying in hotels since then. They had checked into this hotel on June 8. The room charge was Rs 4,500 per day. Breakfast was complimentary. The deceased paid Rs 1,98,000 to the hotel, and the payment was up to date,” said joint commissioner, crime, Kolkata police, Sankha Shubhra Chakrabarty.
New Market police station received information from the hotel on Wednesday evening about a particular room that had been locked from the inside and the guests were not opening the door since morning.
A team from the police station went to the hotel and opened room No. 303 with the help of a master key in the presence of the staff. The police said they found the two women lying unconscious on the bed.
Both were taken to SSKM Hospital, where the mother was declared dead.
The fan and the air-conditioner of the room were on and so were the lights, suggesting that possibly they consumed the medicines at night when the lights were on.
"According to hotel officials, the mother and daughter were scheduled to check out on Wednesday morning. But they did not open the door when the staff knocked in the morning with breakfast. Later in the day, when they did not respond to calls or open the door, officials at the hotel decided to seek police help," said an officer at Lal Bazar.
An unnatural death case has been started at New Market police station. The police said they were waiting for the daughter to recover before they would record her statement.
Rape verdict
A court in Jhargram has sentenced a man to 35 years in jail for raping his minor daughter in 2018.
The man was convicted by the Special Court (Pocso Act,Jhargram) on Wednesday. The punishment was announced on Thursday.