Bengaluru tech worker's body mistakenly swapped during transport: Report

The tragic death of a man in Bengaluru turned into a nightmare for his family in Odisha when his body was swapped with another due to a labeling mistake.

Published on: Aug 18, 2025, 13:58:49 IST

By HT News Desk, Bengaluru

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A tragic death turned into a distressing ordeal for a family in Odisha after a Bengaluru-based tech worker’s body was mistakenly swapped during transportation - allegedly due to a labeling error at the dispatch point.

Bengaluru body mix-up: Odisha family receives wrong corpse during transport. (Representative image) (REUTERS)

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Rakesh Shaw, a 21-year-old supervisor employed at a private firm in Bengaluru, died by electrocution on August 15. Following standard procedure, his body was to be transported back to his hometown of Mulising village in Odisha’s Balasore district for the final rites, news agency PTI reported.

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However, the grieving family’s trauma only deepened when the coffin that arrived on Sunday turned out to contain the body of another deceased individual - from Siliguri, West Bengal. Both bodies had reportedly been loaded into the same ambulance from Bengaluru, destined for different states, according to the report.

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The mix-up came to light when the family opened the coffin in Soro block and realized it wasn’t Rakesh. In a rush to correct the error, the funeral transport service was contacted, and the ambulance, already en route to Siliguri, was forced to turn back midway to swap the bodies again, the report added.

Family members alleged that the entire episode resulted from a wrongly labelled sticker affixed at the dispatch point in Bengaluru, leading to the mistaken handover, it further stated.

(With inputs from PTI)

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HT News Desk
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