Dancer’s body goes missing from hospital after autopsy, two Sion mortuary staffers suspended

Two Sion mortuary staffers suspended; another elderly couple could have cremated him

Sion hospital authorities suspended two mortuary staff on Sunday evening after the body of a Wadala resident went missing.

Ankush Surwade, a 28-year-old dancer, suffered head injuries after falling off a motorcycle last month. He died in the early hours of Sunday. Relatives claim Surwade’s kidney was also removed without their consent. According to the relatives, the mortuary could have handed over the body to another family.

When the body was first handed to them, the relatives said, they found stitches on his abdomen. Following the discovery, they demanded a postmortem. The relatives and his friends were waiting downstairs at 1 pm when the body was brought for verification after the post-mortem. The relatives confirmed that the body was Surwade’s and requested the staff to keep it in the mortuary while they made arrangements for the last rituals.

The relatives said that when they came to take the body at 5 pm, they were handed another cadaver. Then they were shown three more dead bodies. The relatives then went inside the mortuary and checked four others bodies – none of them was of Surwade’s.

Jitesh Gupta, a friend of Surwade, told Mumbai Mirror: “At around 4 pm an elderly couple took a dead body from the mortuary and cremated it at Sion crematorium. We suspect that was Ankush’s body. We approached the couple at the crematorium and asked them whether they had carried out proper verification.” “We also suspect that Surwade’s kidney was removed. Why would he have stitches on his abdomen? He underwent brain surgery in the last week of August.”

The dean of Sion hospital, Dr Mohan Joshi, did not respond to queries. Calls to the BMC’s public relations officer went unanswered. “They cut him near his kidney, despite the fact that he had head injuries. Later they handed the family a different body. We believe another family carried out the final rites on Ankush’s body,” said BJP legislator Captain R Tamil Selvan.

- With inputs from Vinay Dalvi

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