Jaipur, March 30: Facing allegations that its police was selling unclaimed bodies, Rajasthan government on Tuesday admitted that 15 such bodies were given to private medical colleges and hospitals without following proper legal procedure in Sriganganagar, about 600 km from here.
It, however, maintained that there was no evidence of “selling” of these bodies. Seven police personnel, including four inspectors, have been chargesheeted departmentally in this connection. Three inspectors have also been chargesheeted.
Six others, including five Assistant Sub-Inspectors and one Head Constable, have been removed from active duty and sent to police lines. They have also been served a show-cause notice.
Home Minister Shanti Dhariwal’s admission came in the Assembly in the wake of a BJP member Om Birla raising the issue following allegations by a Sriganganagar-based jeweller Rajkumar Soni that the body of his 19-year-old son Rahul was sold to a medical college by police.
He claimed that a Right to Information query had brought out the irregularities in disposal of unclaimed bodies by the police.
Rahul was found injured in a park in Sriganganagar town on May 25 last year and he died in a hospital the next day. Soni claimed police treated him as an unidentified deceased and sold the body to a private medical college soon after post-mortem without trying to trace his relatives.
He said when he went to the police station he was told that the body has been cremated. But when the address of the crematorium was sought, police said they had given the body to a medical college.
“When we went to the college, we saw 38 bodies including that of my son. After that I filed an RTI application which revealed that the police from 2005 to 2009 have given 29 bodies to two private medical colleges in violation of the Rajasthan Anatomy Act,” he said.
Soni said under the Act advertisements have to be given by police to search for relatives of unidentified bodies and could be given to government medical college only after no one claims them.
The minister told the Assembly that 15 bodies were handed over by the local police to the private medical colleges and hospitals in Srigangangar from 2006 to 2009 without following required legal procedure, but there was no evidence of “selling” of such bodies.
Dhariwal said a preliminary probe by the Additional SP, Sriganganagar, found that the unclaimed bodies were given away to the medical institutions including those dealing with Ayurveda and Homeopathy in violation of the Rajasthan Anatomy Act, 1986.
-PTI