Kanpur: Family keeps man’s body in house for 18 months believing him 'to be in coma'

The matter came to light on Friday when a team from the state health department reached their house. The I-T department informed them that the employee, Vimlesh Kumar, had not been attending office for the past one and half years, and asked them to ascertain his whereabouts.

Kanpur: In a bizarre incident, a family of UP's Kanpur, kept the dead body of a family member at their home for almost one and a half years after his death. The deceased identified as Vimlesh Kumar was an Income Tax (I-T) department employee, who had died of 'Covid-19' in April last year, as per the reports. His body was kept in the house as the family believed he was in a state of coma.

The matter came to light on Friday when a team from the state health department reached their house. The I-T department informed them that the employee, Vimlesh Kumar, had not been attending office for the past one and half years, and asked them to ascertain his whereabouts. A team was then formed by the chief medical officer to look into the matter.

According to ACMO, O P Gautam "the family members continued to insist that Kumar was alive and in a coma when the medical team reached their home and told them that he had been dead for a long time. However, when asked, the family also showed a death certificate issued by Moti hospital in the city which dates back to April 21 last year."

But all this time, the family members, however, did not cremate the body saying that he was alive. Vimlesh’s wife sprinkled ‘Gangajal’ (sacred water from the Ganga) on Kumar’s body every morning, hoping it would help him come out of the "coma", sources said. According to the neighbors, the family told them that Kumar was in a coma. “The family members were often seen taking oxygen cylinders home,” said one of the neighbors.

The CMO said that the body was highly decomposed and in a cadaveric condition which was brought to the hospital for ECG as the family was insisting that the deceased was alive. The body is handed over to the police for further investigation. “Vimlesh’s wife appears to be mentally unstable… we are investigating the matter,” said a police official in Kanpur.