Mumbai:
Touts and hearse operators seem to be sounding the death knell for Mumbai's famed 'spirit'.
After several stories emerged of a private agent duping the kin of the dead in last week's blasts by issuing certificates for the transfer of the bodies outside city limits for a charge which were actually supposed to be issued by the BMC for free comes a shocking report of hearse operators running a similar racket as well.
MiD DAY has learnt that not only did a crafty hearse operator charge a victim's family for issuing an embalming certificate he was allegedly unqualified to issue, the BMC accepted his certificate to process further documentation for the body to be transported to Rajasthan for the last rites.
After the post-mortem of 13/7 victim Guman Singh Rathod at JJ Hospital, his family approached hearse operator John Pinto to transport his body to Rajasthan.
Pinto, however, told them that the body couldn't be transported such a distance without an embalming certificate which, unbeknownst to the family, had already been issued by the hospital and charged them for issuing one (see below).
"It is shocking that the hearse owner misused the grieving family's lack of knowledge of procedures and the civic body accepted an embalming certificate from him, when a certificate of this nature can be issued only by doctors of the centre where the post mortem was conducted," said an official from JJ Hospital.
The matter has now reached the office of Dr TP Lahane, dean, JJ Hospital, which is inquiring into the racket run by hearse operators. "After this incident, we have asked the police to disallow all these hearse vans which are parked exactly outside the post-mortem center," said Lahane.
"In the name of embalming the dead, such private players take extra money from the relatives of the deceased, who are already in shock and are not in a position to understand such procedures," said a senior forensic doctor at the hospital, adding that the private players often charge extra money saying the doctors have asked for it.
On Sunday, a private agent, Kalika Prasad Upadhyaya, was arrested by the police for possessing and issuing several certificates allowing the transfer of bodies outside city limits.
"Upadhyaya had certificates which bore the seals and signatures of authorised doctors. Such certificates can be issued by the BMC only. There is a need to find out how these certificates reach such touts," said Lahane, adding that Pinto's case had also been referred to the police, who have promised action.
JJ Hospital's post-mortem centre was also forced to put up a board stating post-mortems are free on realising that touts were making families pay for that too, saying the doctors charge money or that they could speed up the process.
Procedure
Relatives have to approach medical officers working in the civic setup for taking the dead body outside civic limits.
Such certificates are issued after inspecting the post-mortem report and embalming certificate and state that the relatives are allowed to travel with the dead body via road/air /rail outside Mumbai.
Embalming certificate is a must when the place to which the body needs to be taken is more than 450 km away which was applicable in Rathod's case.
The Other Side
Hearse operator John Pinto said, "We are the only certified private embalmers in the country. I have done a four-year course in the UK.
We do this as a private service and for bomb blast victims we have done it at a 30 per cent discount. I am the only person in Asia who is qualified to do such embalming, and we don't use Indian chemicals.
We charge anywhere between Rs 10 to Rs 24,000 for the service, depending on the chemicals used."
Responding to this, a doctor said, "If the JJ Hospital has already done the embalming, how can it be done for the second time?"
BMC's Executive Health Officer Dr Anil Bandivdekar said, "We do not accept embalming certificates from any private agency. Only post-mortem centers can issue the certificate."