‘Unclaimed’ body exhumed; handed over to relatives

In a humanitarian gesture, the Railway authorities exhumed the body of a person who was buried sometime back and handed over to his relatives. Fifty-year-old V.S. Lokesh, a resident of Kushalnagar, was travelling from Mysuru to Bengaluru on Feb. 1 when he collapsed near Srirangapatna. His condition worsened and the Railway authorities shifted him to the K.R. Hospital where he died after five days. His body was kept at the MMC&RI mortuary and the efforts by the Railway Police to trace the relatives of Lokesh proved futile. Later, his body was declared unclaimed and it was buried on Feb. 9 at the Bannimantap Jodi Thenginamara Road burial ground. Meanwhile, Lokesh’s relatives in Kushalnagar filed a missing person complaint when he failed to turn up even after a couple of days. When the information was passed on to the Railway Police, they were told about Lokesh. The Kushalnagar Police brought Lokesh’s relatives to Mysuru, who identified the photos of the body taken before the burial, as that of Lokesh’s. On request by the relatives that they would like to bury the body at their native place, the Railway Police sent a request to Assistant Commissioner as per procedure and accepting the family’s request, the body was exhumed yesterday and was handed over to relatives. The body was later taken to Kushalnagar where it was buried as per family traditions.