Stab victim’s body goes missing from morgue, hospital staff booked

The Tilak Nagar police have registered a case against an unknown medical officer and morgue in-charge of Rajawadi hospital after a body of a 23-year-old victim in

The Tilak Nagar police have registered a case against an unknown medical officer and morgue in-charge of Rajawadi hospital after a body of a 23-year-old victim in a murder case, went missing from the morgue of the hospital between June 4 and 7.

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According to the police, the deceased, Mehraj Shaikh, a resident of Govandi was stabbed by a group of people on June 3. He was admitted to Rajawadi hospital with serious injuries and died the same night. It was mandatory to perform Covid test before the post-mortem, hence his body was kept in the hospital.

Deonar police, who have been investigating Shaikh’s murder, visited Rajawadi hospital to collect the body for post-mortem after Shaikh’s Covid report came positive. They found the body missing from the morgue, said a police officer.

A complaint was then registered by Shaikh’s brother Siraj at Tilak Nagar police station. Police are also checking the records of all the dead bodies handed over to families or cremated between June 4 to June 7.

Deputy commissioner of police Shashi Meena said, “We have registered a case under section 297 (trespassing on burial places) and 201(causing disappearance of evidence of the offence or giving false information to screen offender) of the Indian Penal Code. Further investigation is on.”

“No one has been named in the FIR so far. We need to figure out the particulars of people who were in charge of the morgue, as well as who was supervising from the medical team” said Meena.

This is not the first incident after an outbreak of coronavirus. In another incident, a 70-year-old man’s body went missing from KEM hospital who tested positive for Covid-19 and was on a ventilator. After an inquiry, the man’s body was later found in the hospital’s morgue. The second incident occurred last week; the Jogeshwari Trauma Hospital performed the last rite claiming to be an unclaimed body of a 41-year-old real estate agent Rakesh Verma. Verma’s family then complained that the hospital and police cremated Verma without informing the family. The police claimed that the family’s address was not found and the family claimed that entire family members were quarantined.