Police involved in selling ‘unclaimed bodies', reveals RTI query

Rajkumar Soni

JAIPUR: A Right to Information (RTI) query by the father of a murdered young man in Sriganganagar town of Rajasthan has revealed a sordid story of police officers allegedly selling bodies of “unidentified deceased” to private medical colleges for conducting experiments. The next of kin of the deceased were kept in the dark about the illegal transactions.

Rajkumar Soni, father of 19-year-old Rahul who was allegedly murdered in May last year, has lodged an FIR against Sriganganagar Superintendent of Police Umesh Chand Dutta and seven others through a complaint filed in a local court while charging them with handing over his son's body illegally to Tantia Medical College in the city.

Mr. Soni, owner of a jewellery shop in Sriganganagar, told reporters at Pink City Press Club here on Monday that the police did not make any effort to trace his son's relatives after he was found unconscious and gave the corpse illegally to the medical college just 10 minutes after the post-mortem. He later obtained the body from the medical institution on a hefty payment.

Policemen at the Kotwali police station initially told Mr. Soni that Rahul's body had been cremated. When asked for the address of the crematorium, they told him that the corpse had been shifted to the medical college “for its preservation”.

Rahul was found unconscious with heavy injuries at a public park in the town on May 25 last year. An ambulance took him to the District Hospital where he died the next day. The police treated him as an unidentified deceased and gave his body to the medical college in violation of the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994.

Mr. Soni said neither the doctors at the hospital tried to save his son nor did the police make any effort to trace his relatives. The police merely questioned four youngsters and did not try to catch the culprits of murder. Mr. Soni has lodged a separate FIR against four doctors and two nurses under Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of IPC.

Through an application filed under the Right to Information Act, 2005, Mr. Soni obtained the details of disposal of unidentified bodies by all police stations in the district. “I was shocked to know that just three police stations gave away 23 bodies illegally to medical colleges during the last five years,” he said.

A gazette notification issued under the Rajasthan Anatomical Act, 1986, lays down the procedure for handing over the bodies of unidentified deceased to medical colleges on the application filed by the latter. The competent officer for Sriganganagar district for the purpose is the Superintendent of P. B. M. Hospital, Bikaner. No corpse can be removed from the hospital before the expiry of 48 hours from autopsy.

“Police officials brazenly violated the legal provisions not only in the case of my son's body but also in all the previous 23 instances. Their act depicts a classic illustration of protectors of law themselves turning into the criminals,” said Mr. Soni.

Mr. Soni alleged that police officers were repeatedly threatening him with dire consequences because his FIR had named the SP, Circle Officer, Station House Officer and owner of the medical college as accused. “Despite the SP being one of the main accused, the investigation has been handed over to the Additional SP of Raisinghnagar, who functions under him,” he said.

Mr. Soni said the district police had given “false information” to the State Assembly when the matter was taken up through a question during the previous session. The police said they had made all efforts to identify the deceased and later shifted the body to Tantia Medical College as there was “no other arrangement” to keep it safe. Mr. Soni further alleged that police officers were involved in a racket of supplying unidentified bodies flowing from neighbouring Punjab in the Indira Gandhi Canal to medical institutions without their post-mortem for the past several years. The police records falsely show these corpses as having been cremated.

http://www.thehindu.com/2010/03/30/stories/2010033058980500.htm