Chennai: Each day last year, around 12 unidentified dead bodies piled up in government-run morgues around the states. At least, that’s what the statistics compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau’s Crimes in India would have us believe. Out of the 37,193 unidentified dead bodies that were recovered across the country, Tamil Nadu’s share was 4,479. If the number in itself is alarming, then its rise when compared to the 2010 figure is even more so.
As per the same report, 2,795 bodies were recovered around the State in 2010, thus showing a more-than-significant rise in body count of 60 per cent. Ironically, the rise in bodies in TN, come on the wave of a rise in bodies nationally - something that has been on the decline since 2007. TN, which came fourth last year, surged to second, having fewer unidentified dead bodies than only Maharashtra (6,313 victims). UP (4,084) and West Bengal (3,704) had the third and fourth highest body counts for 2011.
This is concurrent with a trend that M S Sivakumar, an activist who has been burying unidentified bodies, points out. “Earlier, many of the bodies were stuck in cases of accidental death or suspected homicide and so they were not put down as unidentified. Now, this year, the numbers speak for themselves,” he says.
He goes as far as to allege that most of these bodies are discarded without proper inquests or investigations. “I have been fighting with the health department to give them some decent mortuary space for a few extra days, so that if any relatives spot their pictures, they may turn up,” he informs. But, due to bad mortuary infrastructure and unwilling staff, most “unclaimed” bodies are handed over in a sack to him in a day or two.
A senior police official says that though there had been a surge in the number of dead bodies in TN, the identification process had greatly improved after they started posting mug-shots and particulars online. “At the moment there are 63 pages of unidentified bodies,” he informs Express.
Till June, the site had logged 1,006 unidentified dead persons, which perhaps shows that the trend may be declining a tad.
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