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Misinformation or organ trade: Budaun cops on a puzzling ‘missing eyes’ probe
Two Provincial Medical Services (PMS) doctors, Dr Mohammed Owaish and Dr Arif Hussain, have been arrested as initially cops held them responsible for the incident. An FIR was also registered against them at Civil Lines police station, Budaun.
The Budaun police are currently probing the rather puzzling case of missing eyes of a woman’s body from the Budaun government medical college.
Two Provincial Medical Services (PMS) doctors, Dr Mohammed Owaish and Dr Arif Hussain, have been arrested as initially cops held them responsible for the incident. An FIR was also registered against them at Civil Lines police station, Budaun.
They were charged with the sale of human organs and sent to jail after a court of chief judicial magistrate allowed their judicial custody on Wednesday.
The police action invited sharp criticism from PMA doctors’ association, who questions the doctors’ arrest when a magisterial enquiry is pending.
Inspector In-charge of Civil Lines police station, Gaurav Bishnoi said a newly married woman Pooja Maurya had committed suicide after spat with her husband Juginder at her house on Sunday (December 10) under Mujariya police station limits. “Her body was placed in a fridge of the medical college mortuary and the postmortem examination was held on Monday (December 11) after which the body was sent to her maternal family for cremation. The woman’s family members spotted her missing eyes before the cremation and reported the matter to the police and district administration,” he said.
He said the second postmortem of the woman’s body was conducted by a panel of three doctors on the direction of district magistrate Manoj Kumar after which an FIR was registered on the complaint of woman’s brother Pramod Maurya against unidentified people accusing doctors and pharmacist for it.
“During initial investigation, the statements of two doctors, who conducted the first postmortem examination, pharmacists and other mortuary staff involved in the postmortem process, were recorded. Their statements suggested that the eyes of the woman’s body were missing before the examination and the doctors spotted it but did not inform the family of the deceased to avoid any trouble. They handed over the body after packing it,” said the inspector.
“Even in this case, the doctors would have informed it in the postmortem report, but they did not follow the procedure and it makes a case of negligencem” he added.
The magisterial enquiry report in the case will come on Friday, he said.
The president of PMS doctors’ association, Dr Amit Kumar Varshney met DM Manoj Kumar and expressed his displeasure over the treatment of doctors as criminals and arrest them before the magisterial enquiry set-up him could be completed.
He informed the authorities that it often happens in the places where bodies are kept that reptiles like creatures take away eyeballs of the body from the mortuary. He said one similar incident was reported in the same mortuary when eyeballs of a body of a convict, who had also committed suicide inside Budaun jail, was found missing on June 6, 2022.
