NEW DELHI: No court could have fixed this emotionally draining drama caused due to a horrible mix-up at the
mortuary of a
Delhi hospital during the
Covid-19 pandemic, which resulted in a Hindu cremating two bodies, first that of the mother of a
Christian man, and later his own, while the Christian man was deprived of giving a
burial to his mother.
The Christian man, G Manohar, was in for a shock when he went to a Dwarka hospital to collect the body of his mother, who had died a non-Covid death. The body handed over to him was not his mother’s, but someone else’s. The hospital authorities denied any mix-up and even attributed it to Manohar’s hallucination. When Manohar’s relatives, too, said that it was not his mother’s body, the hospital authorities called one Puneet Kohli, who had collected his mother’s body from the same hospital.
Kohli’s mother had died of Covid-19 and was the reason why he did not even identify it before taking it straight to the
cremation ground. On reaching the hospital for the second time, Kohli, too, was in for a surprise. The body being handed over to Manohar was actually his mother’s. He soon realised that he had cremated Manohar’s mother.
Manohar overcame the shock and emotional trauma of being deprived of carrying out the
last rites of his mother, and permitted Kohli to take the body. Kohli then cremated two bodies, while Manohar was deprived of the right to carry out the last rites of his mother.
It took Manohar four months to recover from the trauma. Now, he has filed a PIL in the Supreme Court through advocate Shilpa Liza George for laying down a National/State Mortal Remains Management/Disposal Protocol to avoid similar trauma to others.
The real-life incident unfolded like a Bollywood script. On September 14 morning, Manohar’s mother fell in the bathroom of her residence in Dwarka. She was rushed to Manipal Hospital in Dwarka, but was declared dead after medical intervention. She was tested for Covid-19 and was found negative. Manohar asked the hospital to keep the body in the mortuary as his relatives were arriving the next day to attend the burial at Burari cemetery.
On entering the mortuary the next morning, Manohar found that his mother's body was kept along with the bodies of those who had died of Covid-19 in utter disregard of the Covid management protocol. A bigger shock awaited him when he found that the body being handed over to him was not of his mother’s. When other relatives insisted that it was not the body of Manohar's mother, the hospital authorities called Kohli, who a few hours ago had taken the body of a woman, supposed to be of his mother.
Kohli arrived and admitted to Manohar that he had taken the body straight to the cremation ground. The mystery unravelled when Kohli identified the body, which was being handed over to Manohar as that of his mother.
In his petition, Manohar said, “The scene at the time was unimaginable. The petitioner was not just grieving the death of his mother, but the hospital’s negligence deprived him of the chance to give her a proper burial. It left him and his family with no closure in a death, which had emotionally shook them to the core, as their mother, who was not bed-ridden for even a day, died in a matter of hours and was cremated by an unknown man, when all the while, the petitioner and his family were making arrangements to bury her remains at the Burari Christian cemetery. Thereafter, the petitioner was asked by the hospital to see a third body stored in the mortuary, and after ascertaining that it was that of a male, the petitioner filed a formal police complaint regarding the matter, and also issued an NOC to Kohli to allow him to cremate his ‘real’ mother, which was his right.”
Manohar said he wanted to highlight the lack of management protocol in the country, as a result of which irreversible harm and agony of this sort was being caused. He requested the SC “to direct the Centre and states to set up a National/State Mortal Remains Management/Disposal Protocol that will be strictly adhered to, so that such trauma and distress can be avoided”.