This number is set to increase as most of the fridges in the mortuary of Nepal Police Science Laboratory (NPSL) located behind the Institute of Medical Sciences at Maharajgunj have been dysfunctional for three months. Due to lack of sufficient fridges, the department has started disposing the corpses quickly. [break]
"We do not keep unclaimed corpses for long as we have no space," Dr Harihar Osti, a forensic expert with the NPSL said.
The four fridges provided by the government in the last fiscal year have all broken down.
"All the four fridges turned dysfunctional after three months," said Dr Osti. "We can only store the dead bodies in the two old fridges now." Dr Osti fears that the two fridges, already in a dilapidated state, might stop functioning any time. The four fridges that had come as replacements of the old ones are now lying outside the premises of the NPSL.
The NPSL can now store only 15 dead bodies at a time. Dr Osti said that the NPSL handles more than 15 corpses a day. When all six fridges were operational, the NPSL could keep up to 40 dead bodies. According to Osti, the Department of Health Services (DoHS) had provided the four fridges, that cost more than five million rupees, to the NPSL after a long effort.
Apart from unclaimed bodies, the mortuary also has to make arrangements for the bodies of people who die during accidents for the purpose of post-mortem. Police are responsibile to take the bodies of unidentified dead people to the forensic laboratory. After post mortem, the corpses are handed over to family members who lay claim for last rites. If the mortuary has sufficient fridges, the bodies could be kept for several weeks for identification.
(Photo: Bijay Rai)
These days, however, the mortuary disposes the bodies within a few days of being brought. Some bodies are handed over to anatomy labs, while others are buried.
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