The body of Chaya Chatterjee (82) was recovered from the dining room of their 1/1A Rakhal Mukherjee Road residence in south Kolkata's Sarsuna area on Sunday after neighbours complained of a foul smell from their flat and called the police.
Chatterjee lived in the flat with her husband Rabindranath Chatterjee and her daughter but none of them informed others or made arrangements for her cremation after her death, police said.
"It seems that she died two-three days back but her family members neither did the cremation nor informed anybody," a senior officer of Kolkata Police said.
"Necessary arrangements have been made to remove the body and arrange for the cremation. Investigation is on to determine the reason of the death," he said.
The neighbours said the family members did not have much of an interaction with them which further reduced after their 57-year-old son Debasish Chatterjee's death.
"Primary questioning reveal that the family members behaved in a similar manner during their son's death and refrained from informing anyone about the incident. The neighbours informed police after a foul smell started coming from the flat," an officer from Sarsuna police station said.
The family had kept all the doors and windows of their second floor flat closed to stop the smell from escaping and even stopped coming out of the house to buy food items in an attempt to hide the death.
( With inputs from IANS )