Surgeon accused of not submitting autopsy reports in 350 cases

8 June 2012

biswabrata goswami
TAMLUK, 8 JUNE: A surgeon who does post-mortems in Tamluk district hospital has been accused of failing to submitting autopsy reports on about 350 cases since 2008. As a result, several police cases whose merits depend on the post-mortem reports have been pending in several courts for years.
Dr Pradip Das, who is also accused of botching several autopsies, meanwhile, alleged that he was threatened on Tuesday by Trinamul Congress workers who pressured him to alter the report on his autopsy of the body of a minor girl who was raped and murdered in Tamluk. Dr Das also alleged they ransacked his house.
"I made SOS calls to the police during the attack, and later met district officials, but no action was taken against the accused," Dr Das alleged. But the district administration accused him of defiance and neglect of duty.
Additional district magistrate Malay Haldar has served a show-cause notice against Dr Das and hospital superintendent Prakash Chandra Barui, asking them to explain within a week why a large number of autopsy reports have not been prepared.
The East Midnapore Zilla Parishad has shot off a letter to the director of health, urging immediate action to restore normalcy to the Tamluk district hospital immediately.  According to health department reports, Dr Das failed to submit 58 autopsy reports in 2008, 55 in 2009, 62 in 2010, 60 in 2011 and 42 up to May 2012.
This was revealed when Dr Das denied carrying out a post-mortem on Dipanjan Dey, a resident of Bolpur in Birbhum who recently drowned in the sea nea Digha. Dev's body was referred to Contai hospital from Digha, and Contai hospital sent the body for to Tamluk district hospital for an autopsy.
But Dr Das referred the body to Kolkata, which enraged the victim's family members, who repeatedly urged him to carry out the post-mortem, alleged zilla parishad saha-sabhadhipati Mamud Hossain. "Dr Das even misbehaved with the victim's family members when they went to his house to ask him to carry out the post-mortem on the body," said Mr Hossain. "This incident came in front of the district administration, which conducted a probe into this matter and found Dr Das guilty."
Dr Das, though, wanted to talk about the rape-and-murder victim's autopsy. He said the alleged murder victim was 11-year-old Puja Bhuiyan, who worked as a domestic help in the house of local schoolteacher Pranab Roy for four years. Mr Roy brought her to Tamluk district hospital on 23 May and told doctors she had fallen unconscious after taking poison to commit suicide. She died.
"I carried out the autopsy, but found signs of some abnormalities," Dr Das said. "The examination of her stomach suggested that the poisoning was post mortem, meaning that someone forced the poison down her throat after her death. Since the girl was a minor, there is no question of consensual sex. This indicates she was raped and murdered."
Trinamul Congress leaders brushed aside his claim that he had been attacked, saying "the doctor is very irregular at his work and he refused to carry out the post-mortem."