Thanks to the carelessness of Lucknow’s authorities, one family had to perform the last rites twice, the first time with the wrong body, while the other, instead of bidding the last adieu, had to make do with the urn of ashes. Both the families have now filed a complaint with Lucknow’s Chowk Kotwali Police Station, demanding strictest action against the errant officials.
Vipin Prajapati’s wife, Sandhya, 26, attempted suicide on Tuesday, after which the family rushed her to the trauma centre. “She breathed her last at 11:53pm. I was told that the postmortem would be carried out the next day. They told me to collect Sandhya’s body on Wednesday,” said Prajapati.
As he reached the postmortem house the next day, Prajapati was told that her body had already been handed over to her “family”, only that it wasn’t. “We told them that we haven’t received the body, but they paid no heed. The officials shoved us out of the premises, stating they had already handed over the body to its claimants,” lamented Prajapati, who is yet to recuperate from the trauma of his wife’s death.
“You are requested to help me in getting the body of my wife,” read Trivedi’s complaint with police.
The police rushed to the spot and tried to pacify the family members, but they demanded a probe. “We immediately cross-checked the records with the Postmortem House, where we discovered that on March 4, a body of one Sandhya Trivedi, 24, who hails from Madiyaon area of Lucknow, was also brought here and her postmortem, too, was scheduled for Wednesday. The handed over the body of Sandhya Prajapati to Sandhya Trivedi’s family by mistake,” said Nagesh Upadhyay, Station House Officer (SHO), Chowk Kotwali, Lucknow. “Same name and almost similar age may have led to the confusion among officials,” added Upadhyay.
But this was not the end of the story. By the time the Prajapatis managed to contact the Trivedis to inform them about the error, the latter family had already performed the cremation. “It was shocking for us too. As the body was over two days old and the face was little deformed, we, perhaps, didn’t recognise her,” said Sumit Trivedi, brother of deceased Sandhya Trivedi.
Amid the blame game, the authorities then handed over the body of Sandhya Trivedi to her family, which performed a cremation for the second time that day, whereas the Prajapati family got the ‘urn of ashes’. “I am the most unfortunate person on Earth who couldn’t even give a farewell to his beloved wife,” said an inconsolable Prajapati.
Officials with the Postmortem House, a part of King George Medical University (KGMU), Lucknow, blamed police for the negligence. “The police bring in the body for the postmortem, after which it is handed over to them. It is their responsibility to hand over the body to the family after completing the paperwork,” said Professor Sudhir Singh, spokesperson, KGMU.
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