Exclusive: No safety for dead in Bihar

Danapur: In the lawless badlands of Bihar only the living were thought to be under threat but now it seems that even the dead are not spared.

In a shocking incident, a dead body has gone missing from a government graveyard in Bihar.

An electrical mechanic, Umesh Prasad, died and unnatural death 10 days ago when he was run over by a moving train on the December 25.

Umesh, the eldest son of the family, was trying to board a train from the Danapur station near Patna. The local General Railway Police (GRP) found his body along the railway track and treating it as unclaimed hastily got it buried whiout even bothering to inform the family.

But this was not the end of his family's travails as when they went to the graveyard where he had been buried to get his body back for the last rites, they found only his belonging and not him.

His anxious younger brother, Rishi Kumar, kept on digging Umesh's grave in an desparate attempt to find his bady just found his cloths and purse.

"Yaha khali mitti hai. Us din bhi mitti tha, aaj bhi mitti hai. Yaha kuch nahi mila, khali kapda aur purse, laas nahi (There is only mud here. On that day also there was only mud. We did not find the body only his cloths and purse)," Rishi says.

His family cannot stop their tears and the mother of the deceased is unconsolable.

"Wahi puchwaye ki laas kaha hai, laas do (Ask where the body is. Give us the body)," his mother Damayanti Devi asks.

It's not just the missing body that perplexes the family but what pains them more is the inhuman approach of the sub inspector in Danapur railway police, who didn't even bother to inform the family about the tragedy, before getting the body buried.

They say Umesh was carrying several identification documents in his pocket, and they could have been contacted any time. But the police does not seem to take responsibility, either about their callous attitude, or even about the missing body.

"Patna main dead body ka racket chalta hai. PMCH main jo mila, jo racket chalta hai, usko us baat ki bhi jankari hogi ki GRP wala faikta hai, to kaha faikta hai (There is a racket of dead bodies in Patna. The rackets runs in PMCH. They know where the GRP throws away the body)," Inspector in GRP of Danapur Kundan Kumar Singh says.

(With inputs from Nikhil Dev and Abhirr VP)