LAHORE – As many as fourteen people including a woman have died owing to cold weather during the first eleven days of January, hospital sources told Pakistan Today on Tuesday.
Police investigators have not been able to find the heirs of the deceased owing to which bodies are placed in the morgue, waiting for funerals. Homeless people are worst hit, as eleven of them were found dead from different main roads, parks and footpaths of the city.
According to morgue sources, these bodies include the corpses of two unidentified men, aging between 40 to 50 years, who were found dead from Gowalmandi, the body of an unidentified woman (50), who was found dead in Shafiq Abad, the body of an unidentified man (60), who was found dead from Garhi Shaho, the body of an unidentified man (40), who was found dead from Chowki Data Darbar, the body of an unidentified man (60), who was found dead from Shafiq Abad, the body of Gulzar Ahmed (50), who was found dead from North Cantonment, the body of an unidentified man (40), who was found dead from Bhaati Gate, the body of Chaman Gull (55), who was found dead from Tibi City and the body of Kareem Ullah (40), who was found dead from Mozang. Hospital sources said that all unidentified people died of cold and most of them were drug addicts too.
Riaz, a Mayo Hospital staffer, said that police officials did not bother attending the unidentified dead bodies because they have to maintain the record at their expenses.
A station house officer of a police station, on anonymity, said that police officials considered unidentified bodies as ‘fatigue’. He said Edhi Foundation and Abeer Welfare Foundation usually helped policemen in carrying out such funerals without spending any money. He said Lahore Police has devised some Standard Operating Procedures for burring unidentified bodies and the first requirement for the funeral of such a body involves printing advertisements in different news papers about the bodies and their distribution in all police stations. But the problem starts when the investigator, inquiring the matter, has to get the ad printed out of his pocket. He said the effort was hectic too and policemen usually confined themselves to only distributing the pictures.
A superintendent of police said police’s duty is to find the relatives of the deceased than burying the body as an unidentified. He said policemen are still using older techniques to trace the families and they do not have access to latest technologies like DNA test and Nadra records. Capital City Police officer Muhammad Aslam Tareen said they had never used latest techniques of the sort. He said these technologies could help police more in finding the deceased’s heirs.
