Both the families had paid the fees and completed the formalities. They decided to take the bodies for the final rituals on Saturday.
This image has been used for representational purposes only.
In a shocking incident, two dead bodies were exchanged and the incident came to light only after one of the families who came to claim the body got ashes instead.
On Friday evening, the bodies of Mandakini Diware, 62, and Vimal Parekh, 72, were brought to the morgue at the government-run Sassoon General hospital. There was no requirement of a medico-legal case so the doctors did not perform post-mortem and handed over the bodies to the families. Both the families had paid the fees and completed the formalities. They decided to take the bodies for the final rituals on Saturday.
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Around 8.30am, Parekh's son Uttam was shown a woman's body and after verifying it, they handed it over to him believing that it was his mother's body. However, when Diware's family came to claim the body around 11.30am, the hospital authorities realised that it was Parekh's body and Uttam had taken the wrong body.
Meanwhile, Uttam assumed that it was his mother's body and performed the rituals. When the Diwares approached the hospital, they found that Mandakini's body had been given to Uttam and the rituals had been performed.
Later, Uttam handed over the ashes to the Diwares and had to rearrange the cremation for his mother.
Dr Murlidhar Tambe, deputy superintendent of hospital, confirmed the incident and said, "Prima facie it seems that the family had identified the wrong body, but still we are probing. We have constituted a committee to check the post-mortem that our doctors and staff had done."
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