PUDUCHERRY: The family of a 42-year-old woman are in shock after her body was cremated by relatives of another woman in a case of mistaken identity.
C T Gunavelli, wife of D Yoganathan from Manavely, was cremated after her body was accidentally swapped at the Indira Gandhi Medical College and Research Institute (IGMCRI) on Monday with that of a COVID-19 patient Anandhayee, 74.
Yoganathan petitioned Chief Minister V Narayanasamy on Wednesday seeking his intervention in the matter.
According to the status report of Dr Fremingston Marak, Professor and Head of Department of Forensic Medicine of IGMCRI, Gunavelli had scleroderma and was on steroids. After she was unwell at home with breathing difficulties, she was taken to East Coast Hospitals, Moolakulam, at around 2.30 am on August 17. She was declared dead and referred to IGMCRI for COVID-19 testing. The swabs were collected at 7 a.m on August 17 and the body kept in the mortuary.
On the same day, at around 11.30 a.m, the body of a COVID-19 patient Anandhayee, wife of Ranganathan, was identified by her son, daughter, son-in-law and two other relatives and cremated by municipal authorities along with her relatives at the electric crematorium at Karuvadikuppam.
The next day at 12.30 p.m, when Yoganathan came to claim Gunavelli's body as she had tested negative for COVID-19, it could not be found in the mortuary. But during a search, it was discovered that the body of Gunavelli was wrongly identified as Anandhayee and cremated.
Relatives of Anandhayee were called to the mortuary to identify the body in the cold chamber. They identified the body of Anandhayee and apologised for their mistake.
“I am in deep shock after not only losing my wife but not getting her body either," Yoganathan told The New Indian Express. The couple’s two daughters, the elder doing her BDS and younger in 6th standard, had been desperately waiting for the body of their mother. "We planned to take her body to our native place Eddapadi near Namakkal for the funeral," he said.