06 June,2015 07:10 AM IST | | Shirish Vaktania
38-yr-old, who had told his wife he was going to Shirdi, allegedly died of a medicine overdose while partying; deceased's friend accuses his kin of procuring fake death certificate and cremating him without informing cops
Girish Nair
A family's desperate attempts to avoid embarrassment allegedly led to a 38-year-old's final rites being conducted without a post-mortem despite his death being an unnatural one.
Girish Nair lived in Kanjurmarg and owned a call centre
Girish Nair, a Kanjurmarg resident and call centre owner, had allegedly died due to a medicine overdose during a party at Madh and doctors from a Malad hospital had wanted to register a police case, but the family allegedly managed to procure a false death certificate and cremated the body.
A friend of the deceased made these allegations in a letter to the Malad police last week. "There is a possibility that in order to save themselves from embarrassment, the family managed to get a false death certificate from a local doctor and disposed of the body by performing rituals," said an officer from the Malad police station.
The letter states, "On April 3, Nair told his wife that he was going to Shirdi with his friends on a pilgrimage and would be back in two days. On the same day, he went to âThe Resort' in Madh, Malad, where his call centre colleagues had arranged a party and alcohol."
Vishal Soni, MD and CEO of Zenith hospital in Malad, said, "Early on April 4, we received a call from âThe Resort' and they sent one of their guests to us for check up. The patient, Girish Nair, complained of stomach pain and had come to the hospital with a woman. We conducted an ECG, gave him a painkiller and kept him in the casualty ward for an hour.
We advised Nair to get admitted to the hospital but he said his friends had arranged for him to get admitted to a hospital in Mulund. We charged R1,900 for the treatment and discharged him." "On the very next day April 5 the woman and the staff from the resort brought Nair's dead body to the hospital. The woman asked us to issue a death certificate, but we refused because it was a police case and not a natural death," added Soni.
The hospital staff alleged that the woman then left the hospital and Nair's wife arrived there. "We explained to Nair's wife that his death was an unnatural one and that it was a police case. We also asked the family to get a post-mortem conducted to ascertain the cause of his death," said Soni.
Cover up
According to Soni, Dr D M Bhavsar, who runs Shiva Clinic on the New Link Road in Malad West arrived at the hospital. With the family's permission, he allegedly took responsibility of the body and said he would handle it from thereon.
"Dr Bhavsar asked me if he would be found guilty if he issued a death certificate and I told him that Nair had died unnaturally and his death was mysterious. We advised him not to issue the death certificate and asked him to inform the police and conduct a post-mortem." Dr Bhavsar allegedly did not inform the police, however, and issued a death certificate claiming that Nair's death was a natural one.
Around 1 pm the same day, the family conducted Nair's final rites without informing the police. Soni said, "We assumed that Nair had died due to an overdose of some pills, but we are not sure. A post-mortem would have revealed the truth." Despite repeated attempts, Nair's family members refused to speak to mid-day. When Dr Bhavsar was approached at his clinic on June 4, he refused to comment.
Cop speak
Senior Inspector Prakash Patil of Malwani police station said, "We have been informed about the incident by the Malad police, since the complaint was initially made to them. We will investigate the matter and record the statements of all involved."
