18 unclaimed dead bodies rotting inside the police morgue in Saktinagar district hospital since last three months during Covid situation
When asked, Dr Aparesh Bandapadhyay, Chief Medical Officer of Health (CMOH), said, “I have written to all concerned to clear the bodies from the police morgue immediately. I will not divulge anything more.”
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KRISHNAGAR,
24 JULY: Amid the steep rise in the Covid-19 cases, unclaimed dead bodies are
not being disposed of for months from the police morgue in the Saktinagar
district hospital in Nadia.
A
total of 18 unclaimed bodies have been rotting since the last three months, while the
sub-divisional officer in Krishnagar for unknown reason has not granted
permission to dispose of the bodies yet.
The situation is
concerning because the unclaimed bodies are taking up the capacity of the
mortuary. The district hospital authority is now unable to
allow the police to keep new unidentified bodies in the police morgue.
The
situation has become so serious at a time when barely a month ago, a disturbing
video of decomposed bodies being loaded into a van at a crematorium in southern
Kolkata was widely shared on social media, prompting Bengal Governor Jagdeep
Dhankhar to tweet his anguish at the "disposal of dead bodies with
heartless, indescribable insensitivity" and forcing the
authorities to issue clarifications.
The
authorities were also forced to deny claims by the locals protesting at the
crematorium and the BJP that the bodies were of those who died due to
coronavirus.
The
West Bengal Health Department later had informed that dead bodies were not of
COVID patients, but were unclaimed/unidentified bodies from Hospital Morgue.
“These
bodies are also not of Covid patients, but the bodies which are all
unidentified or unclaimed should immediately dispose. The morgue has no
capacity to take new such bodies as all rakes are full now”, said a source
placed in the Saktinagar district hospital.
When
asked, Dr Aparesh Bandapadhyay, Chief Medical Officer of Health (CMOH), said, “I
have written to all concerned to clear the bodies from the police morgue
immediately. I will not divulge anything more.”
A
senior police officer in Kotwali police station said, “This police morgue is
entitled to keep unclaimed bodies recovered from police station areas under
Krishnagar and Tehatta sub-division areas. The capacity to keep such bodies in
this police morgue is 18 and at present all rakes are full. So, if any
unclaimed body is recovered now, then it will be very troublesome to the concerned
police station as there is no place to keep such a body in the morgue”.
Recently,
the hospital superintendent and the IC, Kotwali, got involved in a hot
altercation on the matter to keep an unidentified body in the police morgue.
Later, realizing the security matters inside the hospital premises ( which
often the Kotwali police extend their help ), the hospital super agreed to keep
an unidentified body in the police morgue, a police officer said.
A
senior official of the Saktinagar district hospital said Manish Verma, SDO, Sadar,
is the sole responsible for not granting permission to dispose of the bodies from
the police morgue. “The reason for not granting permission is not clear, but we
think that during this pandemic situation, he is probably not taking any risk”,
the official opined.
Mr
Verma was not available for his comment.
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