The front door of the Srinath Mukherjee Lane house. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha

A sister took her life on Rakhi-eve, unable to bear the loss of her elder brother.

Moumita Dutta, in her early 50s, committed suicide by setting herself on fire in her Srinath Mukherjee Lane residence, in Chitpur, on Tuesday night, a day after brother Nilkamal, 65, died. He had been battling cancer for the past five years.

Police said Moumita had locked herself in her room before setting herself ablaze. Family members broke open the door on hearing her screams and found her in flames. They rushed her to RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, where she died.

Though no suicide note was found, police gathered after talking to her relatives that Moumita, a spinster, could not accept the fact that her brother was dead. “That led to her suicide,” said Pradip Chatterjee, deputy commissioner (headquarters).

“Nilkamal had been brought back home from hospital recently, as the cancer was in an advanced stage,” said an officer of Chitpur police station. “Moumita was his constant companion. She would always be at his bedside and take care of him. She fell unconscious the moment she realised that Nilkamal had died.”

Moumita grew up with her brother, with whom she had spent the past five decades.

According to statements provided by Moumita’s family members, she did not eat anything on Tuesday.

“She did not even talk to us and was crying all day. When we asked her to join us for dinner, she entered her room and bolted the door,” a relative told police.

It was around 10 pm when the family members heard her screams. “Smoke was coming out through a gap under the door. We broke down the door and saw her in flames. We immediately tried to wrap her in a blanket to douse the blaze. The fire was put out, but she was unconscious, with more than 80 per cent burns,” one relative recalled.

During their preliminary probe, police came to know that none of the family members had spotted her entering the room with kerosene, which she used to douse herself before lighting the fire.