In a horrific accident in Bareilly, a man’s charred remains were confused for an animal and almost disposed of.
Mohammed Nayeem, a mobile-phone shop owner, was alerted by the police around late Saturday night that his shop had caught on fire. The incident was reported from Roza town of Shahjahanpur. Nayeem rushed to the spot and found the place burned beyond measure.
Amidst the rubble were the obvious items, burned phones, the whole shop covered in a layer of ash and debris, and more shockingly, a burned body.
Thinking that it must have been some poor animal who may have found itself trapped in the store’s fire, Nayeem simply picked it up and threw it away. However, as the police’s preliminary probe carried forward, they discovered something horrible had gone down.
The disposed body wasn't some animal, but actually a human male. The veterinarian consulted by the police confirmed their suspicions that the charred body was, in fact, a man.
The police shared some of their theories about what might have gone down in the store. The man was most probably a thief. He might have attempted to break into the store via the roof which was made of tin sheets. The area could have been a tough fit and somehow the man might have disturbed the roof enough to make a power line and the tin rough come in contact. As a result, he may have been electrocuted in the process.
SHO of Roza Police station, Rajendar Bahadur, told The Times of India that how the body was initially dumped away by the shop owner as he thought it was an animal.
“But later we suspected that it may be of a human being, hence we went there to recover the body,” he said. He also theorised that the man must have been a thief and this is a case of a burglary gone wrong. “So far, no one has contacted us to enquire about any missing person. A locket was recovered from the body. We are also verifying the role of the shop owner and he is also being questioned,” he added.
A member of the autopsy team, Dr Ajay Nagar, told TOI that the body was burnt severely and that makes identifying the age difficult. The only thing they can confirm is that he died of burning on Saturday night.
“All we can say is that he died of burning as we have recovered soot particles from his trachea which can only reach when the person is alive,” he said.