MP COPS IN A FIX AS SENIOR OFFICER INSISTS ‘DEAD’ FATHER STILL ALIVE

Police in Madhya Pradesh are unsure about how to a respond to a peculiar situation, wherein an additional director general (ADG) of police whose father was declared dead by a private hospital on January 14 is insisting that he is still alive and responding to ayurvedic treatment, according to people familiar with the developments.

The matter came to light when ADG Rajendra Kumar Mishra’s staff members, who were assigned to tend to his father, reported sick claiming the body was highly decomposed.

Mishra called it a private matter. “I do not know what the people at the hospital said. But when they gave up, we brought him home and he is being treated by an ayurvedic doctor,” he said. The police officer refused to let anyone see his father, who was 84.

Dr DK Satpathy, a former head of the state forensic department, said: “I have inspected the body. According to medical science, he is not alive. It is a matter of faith for Mishra family members who believe that senior Mishra was in Samadhi.”

A spokesperson at Bansal Hospital, where Mishra’s father was being treated until January 14, Lokesh Jha, said: “KM Mishra was admitted to the hospital on January 13 and he died at 4pm on January 14 .... We have issued a death certificate, and given one copy to the family and one copy to the Bhopal Municipal Corporation.” Some of the staff members working at Mishra’s home in Bhopal said tantriks were called by family members to resurrect the body, adding that there was pressure from the family members to keep the body, hoping for a miracle. But Mishra denied they had brought any tantrik.

Director general of police V K Singh said: “This is a situation without precedence. I have not personally spoken to ADG Mishra about it but some senior officer will talk to him.”