Broken up dead body: GRP SP suspends Balasore ASI

Balasore: The Government Railway Police (GRP), Cuttack SP today suspended ASI Pratap Rudra Mishra of the Balasore railway police in connection with the incident that saw two sweepers of a hospital breaking the dead body of an 80-year-old woman into pieces, stuffing the broken body into a large plastic bag and carrying it on a sling hung from a bamboo pole to Balasore.

The move came after the Collector of Balasore district directed the GRP authorities to take stern action against their two staffs over the incident. The GRP has submitted a detailed report on the incident to the district administration in which it has confessed to having committed the blunder that smacks of gross insensitivity towards the dead, said Collector Pramod Das at a press conference here.

While a special GRP team has gone to the spot and Soro hospital to carry out an investigation into the matter, the rights panel issued summons to the inspector general of railway police and the district Collector.

Notably, Taramani Barik, was killed after being run over by a goods train near Soro-Bahanaga railway station in Balasore district on August 24. Doctors at the Soro Community Health Centre (CHC) declared her dead.

Railway officials, who were supposed to take the body to the district headquarters hospital in Balasore Town for an autopsy, asked the sweepers at the health centre for help after they failed to find an ambulance or any other vehicle to carry the body. As the body had stiffened, the sweepers allegedly broke the leg and hip bones in an apparent bid to make it easier to stuff the body into a sack and carry it.