Family members relent, accept body of engineer who died in Lanka

Jajpur: After refusing to do receive the body of Bikash Mohanty, an engineer who died a month back while working in a company in Colombo, for two days, family members of Mohanty relented today and accepted the body following an ultimatum served by the district administration.

The body of Mohanty had arrived at his village Sahupada of Bari block in Jajpur district on May 22, 29 days after his death.

Notably, Mohanty had died in Colombo on April 24. But there was inordinate delay in bringing his body back from the island country. His body finally arrived in Bhubaneswar on May 22 due to the efforts of the district administration. A team led by the Bari Tehsildar went to Bhubaneswar and received the body from the airport and took it to Sahupada village the same day.

But the family members refused to receive the body as there were no relevant documents like the mortem report, no agreement paper the deceased had signed with the company at the time of his joining, and no provident fund money from the company.

Following the refusal, the district administration took the body and kept it inside the morgue of the district headquarters hospital.

After failing to persuade the family members, the administration yesterday served a 72-hour ultimatum to the family members to receive the body failing which it threatened to declare the body as unidentified and take necessary steps.

The family members finally received the body of Mohanty from the hospital today and took it to their village for post mortem. The district administration paid Rs 10,000 to the family under the Harishchandra Yojana to perform the last rites.