‘Haunted House’ sisters moved to mental hospital

The sisters recovered in 2005 from a cloistered home in Dhaka’s Mirpur have been moved to the National Mental Health Institute in Shyamoli. Dr Ainunnahar Rita and her younger sister, the chemical engineer Nurunnahar Mita, were moved there from their sister’s home on April 10, reports the Bangla Tribune. Family members said they were forced to bring them there after they turned violent and stopped eating in the last few days. Doctors at the institute told the Bangla Tribune that of the two, only Mita was a schizophrenia patient. “Rita was affected by her sister’s illness. Mita became paranoid after she joined work and Rita was influenced by what she told her. We call this shared delusion,” said Dr Tajul Islam. Rita graduated from Salimullah Medical College and Mita from Buet. Both had good professional lives before the illness set in. In 2003 when their mother died, the two tried to bury her at the dead of the night, rousing neighbours’ suspicion. Eventually police resolved the issue, but since then the sisters had stayed completely shut in. In time their home came to be known as a haunted house. Human rights worker advocate Elina Khan rescued the two women from there in 2005. After that they were given some treatment. In 2013, after an episode where they escaped their custodians and travelled to Bogra, eldest sister Kamrunnahar Mita took them in. Dr Nasrin Akter from the Mental Health Institute examined them at length on Friday. The sisters told this correspondent who was present there that their lives deteriorated after the death of their parents. Kamrnnahar’s husband Abdul Momin said the patients had started eating after moving to the hospital. “Both the sisters are highly paranoid,” said Dr Tajul Islam. “They are suspicious of everyone. You cannot reason with them.” Rita would be treated much more easily if she were to be removed from her sister, he added. “If the family separated Rita in the beginning, she would not be so sick. If the families are more aware, such patients can be treated back to normalcy,” he said. The episode during their mother’s death was the point where they should have been identified as mental patients, the doctor said. Dr Nasrin Akter said Rita and Mita were better now, although physically a little weak.