Meerut: Authorities at a post-mortem house here handed over a wrong body to a family, causing major embarrassment for the district administration.On Monday, the authorities handed over the body of a murder victim to the family of an accident victim. Realising the gaffe, the police stopped family members of the accident victim when they were to the cremation ground in Amroha. The police were informed by family members of the murder victim, Rajpal, from Meerut’s Khadkhadi village, who found a different body at the post-mortem house.“It would have been a blunder had the family of the accident victim cremated the body. Something went wrong at the post-mortem house. We have reported the matter to the Chief Medical Officer,” Rajendra Tyagi, Kharkhauda Station House Officer, told TOI.Rajpal was killed by his nephew, 19-year-old Shekhar, when he saw his uncle got into a scuffle with his father on Sunday night. The body was sent for post-mortem by Kharkhauda police on Monday morning. However, the family was handed over a body of another person, from Amroha, who had been killed in an accident. On the other hand, Rajpal’s body was given to the accident victim’s family which headed for cremation ground.The goof-up was, however, averted at the last minute. A blame-game began soon afterwards between the post-mortem house authorities and the police.“The staff at the post-mortem house make family members identify the body before handing it over to them. There must have been an error of judgement by policemen,” Meerut CMO Raj Kumar Chaudhary said.The police claimed that no post-mortem had been conducted on the body that was handed over to the Amroha family. “How can the body, even by mistake, be handed over without conducting the autopsy ?” Tyagi said.Senior police officers tried to downplay the incident. “There was confusion at the post-mortem house, but it was resolved,” SP (rural) Rajesh Kumar said.Later, the post-mortem was conducted and bodies were handed over to respective families.

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