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ShareMumbai: Once in 20 days -- or sometimes a month -- SM Patil, the police surgeon at JJ Hospital, walks into a freezing strongroom and opens nine niches to make sure all is well. This, in post-mortem parlance, means that bodies are not rotting. Patil takes onehard look at the corpses of the nine terrorists responsible for wantonly ending many innocent lives on November 26 last year.
By now, he does not care whose bodies they are; the last time he checked on them was October 21, when he went through the routine, tearing the seals of five "witness" signatures to open the door and putting a fresh seal with another set of fresh signatures with the date of inspection inscribed.
Abandoned by Pakistan and cold-storaged by India, the terrorists' bodies are under round-the-clock vigil, with three policemen from JJ Marg police station posted there.
Several letters have travelledback and forth, umpteen discussions and meetings held, but the nine bodies lie unclaimed, waiting to be disposed of.
Authorities protecting the body have sent several reminders to their higher-ups. "We have written to the police as well as state at least three to four times but no decision has been taken as yet," said Patil.
The stench that engulfs the mortuary and campus of the JJ Hospital at Byculla is a stark and stinky reminder of bureaucratic apathy. With Muslim organisations in the country refusing to bury the bodies, the fate of these corpses could remain undecided for some more time.
The bodies, preserved in a steady regulated temperature of 4 degrees C, have recently come under a fungal cover but experts say it cannot initiate decomposition. The entire cabinet inside the highly guarded mortuary has been sealed and is opened only under strict supervision of doctors and cops. For those guarding the corpses, the wait has become too long and taxing.
Headaches, giddiness due to the stench emanating from these bodies have been giving the cops a tough time. Police constable AM Sheikh has been posted outside the mortuary of JJ Hospital and has been guarding the dead since November 26 last year. "Initially, I had problems eating food after my shift hours but now I am used to it," he said.
Another constable Mangesh Ghadigaonkar suffers from regular episodes of headache. "It is the call of duty after all and whatever the conditions, we have to perform it," he said. Three police constables are always posted outside the mortuary for the security of bodies.
These bodies of terrorists were brought in as soon as they were gunned down at the Taj, Trident or Nariman House. "The bodies were taken for detailed post-mortem and embalmed immediately so as to stop decomposition," said a doctor from the forensic department who requested anonymity. "About 5 litres of embalming solution containing 10% of formalin was injected in their bodies," said the doctor.
Embalming dehydrates tissues or drains out all water from the body and kills microbes so that bodies are well-preserved. Patil said that with embalming and consistent temperature, bodies can be preserved for decades. But, he called it pointless. "Whatever samples were required to conduct DNA or other tests have already been collected by national as well as international agencies including FBI," he said.
Now, everyone involved in protecting the perpetrators of crime are hoping that the bodies will be disposed off before November 26.
