Nadia administration gears up to dispose of the unclaimed dead bodies from police morgue hours after the news published

Nadia administration gears up to dispose of the unclaimed dead bodies from police morgue hours after the news published 

The SDO, Sadar Manish Verma has requested the chairman of Nabadwip municipality to cremate four dead bodies (unclaimed) per day.  

   

                          

 Biswabrata Goswami

 Hummingbird News

KRISHNAGAR, 28 JULY: Finally, the Nadia district administration geared up to dispose of the unclaimed dead bodies rotting in the police morgue since the last three months at Saktinagar district hospital in Krishnagar.

The sub-divisional officer (SDO), Sadar has written a letter addressing to the chairman of Nabadwip municipality urging him to allow cremation of unclaimed bodies kept inside the police morgue at Saktinagar district hospital.

The move came hours after the news published by Hummingbird News under the headline – 18 unclaimed dead bodies rotting inside the police morgue in Saktinagar district hospital since last three months during Covid situation on 27 July.

Today, four bodies were disposed from the police morgue and these were cremated at electric crematoria in Nabadwip burning ghat.

The SDO, Sadar Manish Verma has requested the chairman of Nabadwip municipality to cremate four dead bodies (unclaimed) per day.  

Amid the steep rise in the Covid-19 cases, unclaimed dead bodies had not been disposed 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 had not granted permission to dispose of the bodies till the news published.

The situation was concerning because the unclaimed bodies were taking up the capacity of the morgue. The district hospital authority was unable to allow the police to keep new unidentified bodies in the police morgue.

The situation had 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.

“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”, a source placed in the Saktinagar district hospital had said.

When asked, Dr Aparesh Bandapadhyay, Chief Medical Officer of Health (CMOH), had also said, “I have written to all concern to clear the bodies from the police morgue immediately. I will not divulge anything more.”

A senior police officer in Kotwali police station had 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 had said Manish Verma, SDO, Sadar, was 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 had opined.