Sisters were living with son, 70-yr-old mother

His Saturday morning’s decision to take his two starving cousins out of their self-confinement and get them admitted to a hospital was the last option left with Neeraj to save his cousins’ lives.

His Saturday morning’s decision to take his two starving cousins out of their self-confinement and get them admitted to a hospital was the last option left with Neeraj to save his cousins’ lives.

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Neeraj’s decision is now being appreciated not only by the neighbours of the victims — who themselves had made several failed attempts to bring the sisters back in touch with the outside world — but also by the police and doctors at Baba Sahib Ambedkar Hospital where the victims are now undergoing treatment.

According to the neighbours, Neeraj took the step as there was no other way out to save the lives of his cousins — Mamta Gupta, 40 and Nirja Gupta, 29 — who had confined themselves to self-created isolation for over six years.

Neeraj had come over to the house to meet his cousins on Friday evening when he found them in a critical condition and decided to shift them to a hospital, the neighbours said.

Though not a new experience, the middle-class residents of B-6 locality at Rohini sector 8 in outer Delhi were shocked on Saturday when a team of centralised accident and trauma services (CATS) took out the duo sisters in pathetic health condition.

“We were inside our house and there was complete silence outside until we heard some commotion at 11am. We came out and saw Mamta being taken inside a CATS ambulance. The foul smell coming out of the house so harsh that it was difficult for us to stand there,” said Roopwati, the victims’ neighbour, adding that younger sister Nirja was taken to the hospital in another ambulance at 1pm.

The sisters, who were living with their 70-year-old mother and Mamta’s son Shubham, were admitted to the ICU of the hospital from where Nirja was later shifted to a ward as her condition was comparatively better than that of Mamta, said doctors at the hospital.

“The sisters are suffering from flexion deformity and are severely malnourished. The body weight has come down so much that their bodies look like skeletons. They do not have enough blood inside their bodies and their bones have become extremely fragile. They have lost a lot of muscle mass as well,” said a doctor at the hospital.

According to Amreshwar Narayan, chief casualty medical officer (CMO) of the hospital, elder sister Mamta is in a serious state as she also has multiple wounds on her body.

"Her limbs are not working and she has bed sores not only on her back but also on her feet. We also found maggots on her body when she was brought to the hospital," said Narayan, adding that it was clear that the sisters had not eaten anything since a very long time.