Body lies for 5 hrs at railwaystation; cops fight over limits

CHENNAI: In an incident that lay bare the total lack of apathy by the police, the body of an unidentified person who died inside the Chengalpattu railway station, lay on the ground unattended for more than five hours as the cops were busy fighting over jurisdiction.

In the early hours of Monday, several students and people working in offices across the district had queued up in front of the ticket reservation counter at the Chengalpattu railway station to purchase tickets. However, tension prevailed when some of the passengers realised that an unidentified person who had gone to sleep the previous night in front of the ticket counter had died and his lifeless body lay unclaimed on the ground.

Despite informing the police, no one came to remove the body from the station premises and the corpse lay unattended for over five hours from 6 am to 11 am. Much to the horror of the public, it later came to light that the inaction was due to the Chengalpattu police and the district railway police fighting over jurisdiction and putting the onus on each other.

The issue was resolved after it was decided that the Chengalpattu railway police would take responsibility for the case after which the body was sent to the GH for further identification and postmortem. The incident caused a lot of uneasiness among the travellers who were openly appalled by the police apathy.