Corpses rot in GTB hospital, ‘apathy’ delays postmortems

New Delhi: Following riots in northeast Delhi, as many as 39 bodies are piled up and are rotting in East Delhi’s Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) hospital, but only eight post-mortems have so far been conducted by the doctors, that too on a case-to-case basis, against the standard procedure of forming a supervisory board to administer and complete the post-mortems on a timely basis. This, according to sources, shows the lack of seriousness of the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party which is supposed to constitute the supervisory board.
Highly placed sources have informed The Sunday Guardian that family members of the deceased individuals are waiting for the past four days, but the GTB administration and the state government seem to be in no hurry to complete the post-mortem of the bodies, even as the rotten corpses are lying in the hospital.
A source in GTB hospital told The Sunday Guardian: “Four days have gone by, but the administration did not bother to form a supervisory board that usually assists in the post-mortem and helps in the legal proceedings. The apathy is such that the GTB administration is not ready to accept that it has no infrastructure to complete this many post-mortems and it should ask for help from other hospitals in Delhi.” “If the supervisory board is not formed today (on Friday evening), I see less likelihood of it happening tomorrow (Saturday) and day after, the Delhi secretariat will be closed; so there is very low chance of the supervisory board being formed before Monday or Tuesday. If that happens, the post-mortem of all the bodies will take almost 10-12 days—that is not only unethical, but will create legal hurdles, too, at a later stage as post-mortem ideally should be done within 24 hours of death,” the source added.
The source said: “So far, only eight post-mortems have been done by the GTB hospital and 31 dead bodies are still lying for post-mortem. The mortuary facility available in GTB hospital has no modern facility to preserve the bodies and stop them from rotting. “The state government seems unaware of all this and is not directing the GTB administration to seek help from any hospital in Delhi. Media organisations also seem to be unaware of these facts as they are not highlighting this issue. Family members are waiting to get the dead bodies and complete the last rites of the deceased,” the source mentioned above said.
On the morning of 24 February, a pro- CAA mob came close to an anti-CAA protest site at Jaffrabad and raised slogans. They refused to leave until the anti-CAA protesters left the site. By afternoon, violent clashes broke out in several areas of northeast Delhi. By evening, one such violent clash occurred in the Gokulpuri and Kardampuri areas where a tyre market was set on fire. The death toll has reached 42.