Kalimpong/Calcutta, March 12: A family of three chose to travel more than 600km from their home in Hooghly district to Lava near Kalimpong to commit suicide. While the 65-year-old widowed mother succeeded, two of her children are fighting for life at Kalimpong Subdivisional Hospital.

Kalpana Moitra and her children — Jyotirmoy (30) and Anusuya (29) — had checked into a hotel in Lava on March 8. Last evening, the employees of the hotel, found them lying unconscious in their room. The trio were driven down from Lava to the Kalimpong hospital, 35km away. Police said the three had consumed sleeping pills and Kalpana died two hours after she was hospitalised.

The two siblings are not yet out of danger and will be kept under observation for the next couple of days.

In Konnagar, the Moitras used to stay in a rented apartment, which they had vacated on February 28. “Before leaving with her children, Kalpana handed over the keys and took back Rs 5,000 she had given as advance. She told me that the furniture, utensils and the gas oven would be taken away by a rickshaw puller later. The family then left with two big shopping bags and a suitcase in a private car,” said Ranendra Nath Ghosh, the landlord.

The police are trying to find out where the family was from February 28 to March 7. Ghosh said Kalpana had told him that they would go to a relative’s house in Bally, 10km from Konnagar.

The address of Ghosh’s flat had been found in the hotel room. The family had also told the hotel authorities that they were from Konnagar.

“The Moitras themselves owned a flat near Debpara (Konnagar), which they sold in 2005. I think financial distress might have driven them to suicide,” said Ghosh.

K.B. Dorji, the additional superintendent of police, Kalimpong, said the family seems to have been suffering from depression.

Kalpana’s husband was a chemist in a pharmaceutical company.

On Monday, the Moitras told hotel employees that they would be leaving for nearby Rishap and might not return. However, later in the evening they were back and checked into the same room.

“Before leaving for Rishap, they had told the staff that they should divide among themselves the belongings in the two suitcases that they were leaving behind,” said Dawa Lama, the secretary of Lava Hotel and Restaurant Owners’ Association. The family had also cleared the bills before leaving.

The police in Kalimpong claimed that they had a hard time getting in touch with the relatives of the Moitras. “However, we did manage to contact the Kalpana’s brother Kanak Sanyal. He told us he was in Guwahati and would try and arrive here at the earliest,” said the additional superintendent of police.