A police team has found hundreds of human skeletal remains lying in a forest near the state-run Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital in Muzaffarpur town in Bihar, where 108 children have died of encephalitis over the last two weeks, ANI reported on Saturday. An investigation team of hospital authorities had visited the spot with the police, and found the remains.
“Skeletal remains have been found here,” Dr Vipin Kumar, who works at the medical facility, said. “Detailed information will be provided by the principal.”
Two or three of the bodies were found charred, while some skeletal remains were stuffed in sacks, the report said. Janak Paswan, the hospital’s caretaker, told ANI that the bodies were dumped in the forest after autopsy. “I never tried to ask the authorities about these skeletons,” he said.
Muzaffarpur District Magistrate Alok Ranjan Ghosh has sought a report from the administration and the hospital’s concerned departments regarding the matter.
Superintendent of Police SK Shahi said the postmortem department takes care of the bodies. “This is really inhuman if they have dumped the bodies in open,” he said. “We will ask their department head to call an inquiry regarding the matter.”
Shahi said that whenever the hospital receives a body, it has to inform the police. The body is to be kept in the postmortem room for 72 hours. If no family member comes forward to receive it, the postmortem department has to decide to burn or bury the corpse.
Sub Divisional Magistrate (East) Kundan Kumar and Superintendent of Police (City) Neeraj Kumar rushed to the spot after the news spread, PTI reported. “We will not like to comment on this episode until we conduct a thorough inquiry,” Neeraj Kumar said.
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