KOCHI: A day after Aluva native Antony, 71, came back from the 'dead', the police have decided to dig up his tomb to identify the person whose body was buried in it a week ago.
“Since the person believed to have been dead has returned home, we have no option but to dig up the tomb and shift the body to the mortuary for identification purposes. We will seek permission from the revenue divisional officer” said a police officer.
Antony, a resident of Chungamveli, returned home around 3 PM on Monday only to learn that his family, mistaking another person for him, had performed his last rites a week ago. It all began on August 13, when the police rushed an elderly person, who looked like Antony, to the hospital from the KSRTC bus stand area after he started facing breathing trouble. He died the next day.
The body was kept at a government hospital mortuary in Aluva. A police officer who found the body informed Antony’s family members. Antony’s four sisters as well as ward members Sneha Mohanan and Joe confirmed the body as his based on a wound mark on the leg.
“It is not our mistake. The family and people’s representatives identified the body. We handed over the body to them only after that,” said the officer. The police have decided to use DNA profiling and have approached the State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB) to identify the deceased.
“We recovered a small piece of paper from the deceased person’s pocket. On it, the name ‘Janardhanan’ was written. It may be his name. We have approached the SCRB to find missing cases of people named ‘Janardhanan’,” said the officer.