Family of dead Bihar man forced to carry body in a plastic bag

Mangalore Today News Network

Katihar,Sep 28, 2016: Insensitive to their repeated pleas for an ambulance, authorities at Sadar hospital here forced three people to carry their dead relative in a plastic bag.

The three people had earlier brought the badly decomposed body of Sintu Kumar to the hospital for postmortem, but the officials refused to conduct the autopsy and instead, asked them to go to Bhagalpur, about 86km from Katihar. The repeated request of the family members to provide an ambulance also fell on deaf ears.

Helpless, the family members were forced to carry Kumar’s body in a plastic bag. “We were helpless after we were told to take the body to Bhagalpur for postmortem,” they said.

Katihar civil surgeon SC Jha said the body was brought to the hospital on Sunday. “As it was badly decomposed, we referred it to Bhagalpur for postmortem,” he said, adding that the hospital did not have hearse facility. “It was the duty of the police to send the body to Bhagalpur,” Jha said.

Kumar drowned in river Ganga at Kursela almost two weeks ago and his body was fished out on September 25.

Earlier this month, two watchmen and a sub-inspector of police were suspended after television images showed them dragging the decomposed body of an unidentified youth by rope in Vaishali district. The Desari police had fished out the body from the Ganga. With the help of a rope, it was dragged to a dry spot.

The video went viral when a local youth filmed the incident and shared it with some Hajipur-based contributors of TV news channels.