Cops accused of selling corpses to pvt colleges

Police officials in Rajasthan illegally sell unidentified corpses to private medical colleges for Rs 5-7 lakh each, an RTI application by a businessman here has revealed.

Police officials in Rajasthan illegally sell unidentified corpses to private medical colleges for Rs 5-7 lakh each, an RTI application by a businessman in Jaipur has revealed.

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Raj Kumar Soni’s son Rahul was allegedly murdered last year in Sriganganagar district, 500 km from Jaipur.

When the police discovered his body, they treated it as ‘unidentified’ without making any effort to trace his relatives, and illegally sold it off, said Soni.

When he went to the police to claim the body, they first said his son had been cremated. “When I asked for the address of the crematorium to take the ashes, the police said they had sold the body to the privately-run Tantiya Medical College,” Soni said on Monday.

An RTI petition filed by Soni revealed that three police stations had given 23 bodies to two colleges in the last five years. The business of selling corpses began three years ago, he said.

The police have, however, denied the allegation. Under the Rajasthan Police rules, police could hand over unidentified bodies to hospitals for study purposes, said Bikaner Range IG M C Meena.