“I had to pay the police Rs 9,000 to get my elder brother’s body out of the hospital morgue,” Gurupada said at his home in Brajalalpur village, Patashpur, this evening.
He said the police again harassed him for money at Mumbai airport yesterday. “They asked for money to load the coffin onto the aircraft. I told them I didn’t have any money. Finally, when the flight was about to leave, they let me go.”
Deputy commissioner Nisar Tamboli, the Mumbai police spokesperson, told The Telegraph that Nayek’s family had complained to him and that another deputy commissioner had been asked to probe the charges. “We found that a person who helped transport the body in a coffin from J.J. Hospital to Calcutta had overcharged them,” Tamboli said.
“It was an agent who provides such services; it wasn’t a policeman. We have lodged an offence against the person. Action would be taken under the law.”
Prabhat, a gold artisan in a jewellery shop at Zaveri Bazaar, was killed at nearby Opera House where he had gone minutes before the blast. Gurupada worked with Prabhat at the same shop.
Gurupada had a complaint against the Bengal government, too. “When I reached Calcutta airport last night with the body, there was none from the government there to help me,” he said. “I had to hire a hearse for Rs 4,000 to take the body to Patashpur. I had expected some kind of help.”
Last evening, when this newspaper contacted senior state government and East Midnapore district officials, they had said they were unaware of any blast victim’s body arriving in Calcutta.
Prabhat’s body reached Patashpur around 4am today. He was cremated at a burning ghat near his home.
After being informed by the media, Mahmud Hossain, deputy chief of the East Midnapore zilla parishad and district Trinamul Congress secretary, visited the Nayek home in the afternoon.
“We’ll help Prabhat’s widow with zilla parishad funds. We’ll also appeal to Mamata Banerjee to help the family,” Hossain said.