Eyeballs missing from corpse, 2 UP doctors arrested for sale of human organs

IANS

Badaun, December 15

Two Provincial Medical Services (PMS) doctors in Uttar Pradesh's Badaun district have been arrested in a case related to the missing eyes of a corpse.

An FIR has been registered against Mohammed Owaish and Arif Hussain at the Civil Lines police station, Badaun.

The doctors have been charged with the sale of human organs and sent to jail after a court of chief judicial magistrate allowed their judicial custody.

The police action has invited sharp criticism from PMA doctors' association, which has questioned the doctors' arrest when a magisterial inquiry is pending.

The district police are currently probing the puzzling case of missing eyes of a female body from the Badaun government medical college.

Inspector in-charge of Civil Lines police station, Gaurav Bishnoi, said newly married Pooja Maurya had died by suicide after a spat with her husband Juginder at her house on December 10 under Mujariya police station.

“Her body was placed in a fridge of the medical college mortuary and the post-mortem was held on Monday after which the body was sent to her family for cremation. The woman's family spotted her missing eyes before the cremation and reported the matter to the police and district administration,” he said.

He said the second post-mortem of the woman's body was conducted by a panel of three doctors on the directions of District Magistrate Manoj Kumar after which an FIR was registered on the complaint of woman's brother Pramod Maurya against accused doctors and pharmacist for the missing eyes.

“During initial investigation, the statements of two doctors, who conducted the first post-mortem, pharmacists and other mortuary staff involved in the postmortem process, were recorded. Their statements suggested that the eyes of the woman were missing before the examination and the doctors spotted it but did not inform the family of the deceased to avoid any trouble. They handed over the body after packing it,” said the inspector.

“Even in this case, the doctors would have informed it in the post-mortem report, but they did not follow the procedure and it makes a case of negligence,” he added.

The magisterial inquiry report in the case would come on Friday, he said.

The president of PMS doctors' association, Amit Kumar Varshney, met the District Magistrate and expressed his displeasure over the treatment of doctors as criminals and their arrest before the magisterial inquiry was completed.

#Uttar Pradesh