The Elphinstone Road stampede, which claimed 22 lives, has once again opened up the debate on the protocol for post-mortems in cases of mass casualties. As per the norms under the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), in cases where the cause of death is evident, a sample post-mortem should suffice for all the bodies. However, in this case, the police and railway officials demanded autopsies for each of the 22 victims.

Grieving relatives waited all day at KEM Hospital, but not even half the bodies were handed over last evening. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar