COVID-19 victim's body found at bus stop in Gujarat, CM orders probe

The body of a COVID-19 victim was lying unattended at a bus station in Ahmedabad’s Danilimda locality and the deceased’s kin have blamed the hospital staff and police for the shocking incident.

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani directed former principal secretary (health) JP Gupta to lead a probe and submit a report within 24 hours, a government release said. Chhagan Makwana (67) was admitted in the COVID-19 facility in the district hospital and he tested positive for the infection on May 13, after which his family was placed under quarantine.

“His body was found lying unattended at the BRTS bus station early Friday morning by security staff who alerted police. The police took his body to another hospital for post mortem.

They alerted us only after a piece of paper was found in the deceaseds pocket containing his sons number. This too only after the post mortem was conducted,” said Makwanas brother Govind. “We were quarantined but hospital authorities did not bother to inform us about our brother and dumped his body at a bus station. Police also did not care for inquest before taking away his body for post mortem,” he added.

Local BJP leader Girish Parmar said he requested the Chief Minister to order an investigation into the matter. “Hospital authorities failed to inform his family members about his condition, while they were kept under home quarantine. Police also did not conduct inquest. I wrote a mail to the Chief Minister requesting him to constitute a SIT investigation into the matter,” Parmar said.

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Meanwhile, officer on special duty for COVID at Civil Hospital, MM Prabhakar, said, “We found his case fit for home isolation, and asked him to go back home after explaining him everything. We cant say how he ended up there because he left the hospital for his home on a city bus.”

Assistant Commissioner of Police (K Division) ML Patel said an accidental death case has been registered at Danilimda police station and a probe was on to piece together the chain of events that ended with the deceaseds body lying unattended as a bus stop. He said hospital authorities are being questioned in this connection.

The incident comes on the heels of a similar shocker where kin of a cancer patient said they were not informed about the his death for eight days after admission in the COVID-19 facility at civil hospital. His body was traced to the morgue of the hospital after Congress leaders intervened..