It was earlier reported that bodies of two Covid-19 victims had been switched and sent to each other’s families by authorities at Guru Nanak Dev Hospital. (File photo)

In a span of six days, the authorities at Guru Nanak Dev Hospital, Amritsar, twice informed two brothers from Hoshiarpur that their father has died of Covid-19 and later handed them mortal remains of the patient, which was later found to that of a woman.

The family has now filed a habeas corpus in the Punjab and Haryana High Court claiming that the Hoshiarpur resident is still alive but they are unable to locate him and the authorities have failed to provide any response to their queries. The court Monday issued a notice to Punjab government seeking a detailed response by Wednesday.

“Let the state counsel verify the facts and file a detailed response on 22.7.2020,” reads the order passed by Justice Vivek Puri.

According to the petition filed by brothers Gurcharanjit Singh and Dalbir Singh, it was on July 1 that their father S Pritam Singh, who is more than 90 years old, tested positive for coronavirus and was admitted the next day at a Corona Isolation Centre established at Rayat Bahara University in Hoshiarpur. On July 5, S Pritam Singh and Dalbir Singh, who too had tested positive, were shifted to Guru Nanak Dev Hospital, Amritsar as their condition deteriorated, and remained admitted to the same ward.

The tragedy for the family, as per their counsel Rajiv Malhotra and Satinderdeep Singh Boparai, began after S Pritam Singh was shifted to ICU. On July 13, Dalbir Singh was told that his father had died on July 11. However, the news turned out to be false as S Pritam Singh was found to be alive. Dalbir Singh was discharged the same day, without any test, after he had an argument with the medical authorities over the misinformation, as per his counsel.

However, it was not the end of the ordeal for the family. The court on Monday was informed that the family on July 18 received information that their father breathed his last at 11 pm on July 17. When the family received the mortal remains, the body was found to be of a 37-year-old woman Padma, a resident of Damganj locality in Amritsar. The body was later shifted to a mortuary at Mukerian.

“The petitioners are hopeful that their father is still alive and even as per the standard operating procedure, before the cremation, the face of the deceased is required to be shown to the relatives,” the advocates representing the two brothers argued before the court, adding that they were hopeful that their father is still alive and remains still admitted as a patient of coronavirus at Guru Nanak Dev Hospital, Amritsar.

It was earlier reported that bodies of two Covid-19 victims had been switched and sent to each other’s families by authorities at Guru Nanak Dev Hospital. While Padma’s family cremated the body without seeing its face on Saturday, the other family – that of Pritam Singh – insisted on seeing the face one last time and found that they have been handed over wrong body.

While authorities had remained tight lipped over the development, sources at the hospital had blamed human error. “Dead bodies are first packed in PPE kits and then in wooden boxes. However, in this case, the boxes were wrongly labelled wrongly,” a source at GMC had said.