Horror grips country as rotting bodies found on Nishtar Hospital rooftop

MULTAN: Multiple unidentified and decomposed human bodies were found on the roof of Nishtar Hospital’s mortuary on Friday after which the government decided to probe the incident.

The Punjab government formed a six-member committee to investigate the incident after the bodies were discovered and videos and pictures were shared on the internet. Nishtar Medical University’s vice-chancellor has also formed a three-member committee for an inquiry.

A letter dated October 13, 2022, was also sent to the medical superintendent of the hospital, asking for a detailed inquiry report within three days.

Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi Friday took notice of dumping of abandoned bodies on the roof of Nishtar Hospital, Multan, and sought a report from the secretary specialised healthcare and medical education.

The chief minister directed an inquiry and a strict disciplinary action against the responsible staff. “An inhuman act was committed by throwing bodies on the roof,” he said and made it clear that desecration of bodies was intolerable.

“There is no room for such an incident in any society as it’s a mockery of humanity,” he emphasised. Former federal minister Moonis Elahi shared an update on the incident on Twitter, attaching the initial response of the head of the department of Nishtar Medical University’s anatomy department.

The HoD reasoned that the unidentified bodies handed over to the hospital by the police for post-mortem and “if required”, they were used for teaching purposes for MBBS students. The HOD was clear that there is “no issue of disrespect” regarding the bodies and that after retrieval of bones, the bodies were “always” buried properly, suggesting it was a routine practice at the hospital.

According to sources, dozens of bodies are rotting in the room built on the roof of Nishtar Hospital. On the other hand, according to the news circulating on the social media, hundreds of human body parts have been recovered from the roof.

Sources in the hospital told Geo News that the majority of the freezers in the hospital’s cold room — which had a capacity for 40 bodies — have been nonfunctional for many years, and only one of the five freezers is operational.

The sources said now only seven to eight bodies could be kept in the cold room and given the hospital’s situation, two rooms above the cold room were full of bodies. They said the bodies of unidentified people were kept in the hospital for a month and once the said time duration passes, they were sent to the laboratory.

Adviser to Chief Minister Punjab Tariq Zaman Gujjar said a whistleblower tipped him about the rotting bodies. “I was visiting Nishtar Hospital when a man approached me and said ‘if you want to do a good deed then go the morgue and check it out’,” Gujjar said.

He said when he reached there, the staff wasn’t ready to open the doors of the mortuary. “To this, I said if you don’t open it right now, I am going to file an FIR against you,” Gujjar added. He said when the morgue was finally opened, they found at least 200 bodies lying around.

“All the decomposing bodies [of both men and women] were bare. Even women’s bodies weren’t covered.” Gujjar said he asked them (doctors) to explain what was going on to which they said these were used by the medical students for educational purposes.

“Do you sell these bodies? I asked the mortuary authorities.” Gujjar said he asked doctors to explain the incident and in response, they said it was not what it looked like as these were used by the medical students for educational purposes.

“Two of the bodies on the roof were rather in the early stages of decomposition. Maggots were all over them,” Gujjar said. Gujjar said he had never seen anything like that in his 50 years of life.

“Vultures and worms were scavenging on the corpses on the roof. Our tally showed there were at least 35 bodies on the rooftop of the mortuary.” “The bodies after being used for medical education purposes should have been given a proper burial after Namaz-e-Janaza, but they were thrown on the roof,” Gujjar said.

Faheem Siddiqui, who is working as Geo News’ Karachi Bureau Chief and is a senior crime reporter, said in Karachi between 48 hours to 72 hours, one to two bodies were brought to Karachi’s government hospitals, which amounts to 15-20 per month.

Siddiqui said the police station, under whose premises the hospital falls, is responsible for the body. So, once the body is with the hospital, a representative of the government hospital informs the police about it.

He said the police start the process under Section 174 and the body is stored in a safe place. If the family of the deceased do not come to claim the body, it is buried at the Edhi graveyard. Meanwhile, the hospital’s senior doctors said there could be no progress unless the negative and slanderous campaign against the institution was stopped.

“A negative campaign has been launched against the institution in the name of decomposed dead bodies at the dead house roof. The university students conduct research on unclaimed, unidentified bodies under the permission of the Punjab Health and Punjab Home Departments,” they said.

The doctors discouraged unwanted campaigns on the social media and other outlets, which they said, was highly condemnable. A senior professor said, “Such practice continues worldwide and in hospitals in the country. Anatomy is the subject of body parts taught to MBBS students during the first two years of medical college. Postmortem is the process of examining a dead body to find the cause of death. The body samples are taken for tests.”

Nishtar Department of Anatomy head Prof Dr Maryam Ashraf explained: “After the decomposition process of these corpses completes, the bones are separated from their bodies, used for educational purposes, and then the corpses are buried. Therefore, there is no case of desecration of bodies.”