Flyover tragedy: kin made to pay for bodies

The kin of the people, who were killed in Tuesday's flyover collapse at Varanasi, had to pay a bribe to take the bodies from the postmortem house at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in the town.

According to sources, the kins were charged Rs 300 for each body and those who refused to pay were not allowed to take their dead for conducting their last rites.

The matter came to light when a video showing an employee at the postmortem house charging money for handing over the bodies to the kin went viral.

It also showed the employee haggling with the kin over the payment of money.

Taking a serious view of the matter, Varanasi District Magistrate Yogeshwar Ram Mishra suspended the employee.

An FIR was also lodged against him, sources said.

Earlier, the state government suspended four senior engineers of the Uttar Pradesh Bridge Corporation, the state-owned company which had been given the contract for constructing the flyover.

A case under different sections of the IPC was also lodged against them.

Nineteen people were killed and over 50 others injured, when a portion of an under-construction flyover had collapsed near the Cantonment Railway station in Varanasi, the Lok Sabha constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, about 300 km from here, on Tuesday.