The body of a man who was buried on Tuesday, was on Saturday exhumed after it was discovered that it was the wrong body that was buried.
The discovery of the wrong body being buried was made on Saturday morning when relatives of Mohabir Ragasammy, 79, of Reliance, East Canje, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) went to Persaud Funeral Parlour to prepare his body for cremation.
Dead: Mohabir Ragasammy
Initially, they were shown the body of another man who was later identified as Paul Albert Samaroo, 71, of Fort Ordinance Housing Scheme.
After they recognised that it was not the body of Ragasammy and his body was not at the funeral home, family members started a frantic search, checking other funeral parlours and also the New Amsterdam Hospital Mortuary.
The man’s daughter, Neeta Mohabir, 52, said following the passing of her father on Sunday at the New Amsterdam Hospital, the body was taken to the Persaud Funeral Parlour, also situated in New Amsterdam.
“They told us that we don’t have to worry, Persaud Funeral Home deal with all COVID cases and they do everything so we would not have to do anything,” she related to this publication.
She said that they had verified that his body was taken to the funeral home and made all of the necessary arrangements.
“Today [Saturday] is the cremation. Now when we come to bathe our father and dress him, we cannot find our father. They put somebody else on the table and tell us that it is our father. I tell them that this is not my dad because this is a strapping person. We get to understand that they give away my father Tuesday,” the woman told this publication in tears.
Body of Mohabir Ragasammy being exhumed
Meanwhile, contact was made with relatives of Samaroo who had buried a body on Tuesday and they identified the body at the funeral home as that of Paul Albert Samaroo.
The man’s 24-year-old son told this publication that his father passed away at a hospital in the city and arrangements were made with Persaud Funeral Home. He said he was there when they uplifted the body and on Tuesday when he went to the funeral home for the burial, he was shown a body and objected saying that his father had smaller feet and was not so dark in complexion.
According to the young man, he was told that because of the time spent in the cold storage it was customary for bodies to get darker in complexion.
“He convince me by telling me that it is my father,” the son said.
At the funeral he said a few persons had objections saying that it did not look like Samaroo. Meanwhile, an official from the funeral home told this publication that the onus in on relatives to identify the body and that was done on Tuesday.
Both families said the bodies were labelled at the time of being given to the funeral home.
Nevertheless, Ragasammy’s family members are concerned that he was buried according to Christian customs while he was of Hindu faith. They say it is a violation of his rights.
Following the intervention of the Police, permission was given to have the body exhumed. Ragasammy was later cremated and Samaroo is still to be buried. (G4)
