In an incident similar to the finding of the skeletal remains of a 63-year-old woman in a Mumbai apartment in August, the decomposed, termite-eaten body of a 70-year-old man was found in a house near the Government Medical College in Kerala capital, Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday. The police said the deceased was Radhakrishnan, who had retired as a nursing officer from the Government Dental College in the capital.
local residents said they had not seen Radhakrishnan, who was living alone at his house, for several months, and that he was not in touch with the neighbours since retirement. Nobody used to visit him at the house for the same reason, they said. His wife and children also were not in touch with him and they were staying in Kasaragod district due to some family problems.
Radhakrishnan’s daughter had arrived in Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday morning and she lodged a complaint with the police after she could not find him. The police found the totally decomposed, termite-eaten body when they examined the house, which was found closed, on the basis of the complaint.
The police said Radhakrishnan could have died five or six months back considering the condition of the body. They found newspapers from April inside the house and the page of calendar there referred to that month. This also led made them to arrive at the conclusion. The police has moved the body to the mortuary of the Medical College Hospital after preliminary examinations.
local residents said they had not noticed any stench coming out of the house anytime in the past six months. “That need not be reason for surprise because the two-storey house is standing in a plot a little away from the road. Also, as he had never been keeping any contact with the neighbours, nobody had given a thought to it,” said a shopkeeper in the area.