On Thursday afternoon in the Howrah District Hospital’s overcrowded and squalid female medical ward, inmates and staff went out of their way to help Sonamoni and Phoolmoni Pramanik.

The two sisters are severely malnourished after being confined to their house by their father, Tapan Pramanik, for over a year.

With biscuits, fruits and blankets the other patients reached out to the emaciated girls as they sat clad in rags, huddled on the same bed. They refused to respond to queries. Only Phoolmani kept inquiring about her father. Both the girls appeared withdrawn and confused.

“They need food more than anything else,” the women chorused as an attendant hurried of to fetch lunch - though lunchtime was over an hour ago.

Earlier, an official of the district’s women and child welfare department, accompanied by a team from the Malipanchghara police station, descended on the 4, Aurobindo Road flat where the Pramaniks had retreated into their first floor flat and rescued the girls, their brother Rajesh and their defiant father, Tapan. Both Rajesh and Tapan were in a similar condition.

The hall of the flat in the six-storey building was piled high with garbage pickings and plastic refuse.

“He (Tapan) kept collecting and bringing in all this rubbish since several months. We tried to reason with him but he would lock himself in and refuse to talk. We believe this is what he sold as scrap to make money. He wouldn’t allow us to feed the children or talk to them. After his wife’s death last year, things got worse. He just kept collecting rubbish all the time,” said Tapan’s niece, Deepali Basak, whose parents live in the adjoining flat.

“He was a well-known mechanic in the area, with many customers. But lately, he began collecting garbage for a living. The family would eat whatever he could get them, sometimes nothing for days,” a local resident said.

Neighbours said the stink from the Pramanik residence made it almost impossible for the rest of the inhabitants to reside in the building.

Dr Pradeep Pal, who is attending to the Pramaniks at the hospital, said they appeared to be mentally affected and malnourished. “They are being referred to a pyschiatrist. Otherwise, their vital organs are functioning satisfactorily. They will have to be kept under observation for some time,” Pal said.