The manager of a Kolkata crematorium denied the allegations of the father of the trainee doctor who was raped and murdered at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital after claiming that her daughter was cremated in haste despite two more bodies being present there. He said the body could have become decomposed due to a six-hour gap between the postmortem and the time when the body reached the crematorium.

The body of the trainee doctor, a second-year postgraduate student, was found on August 9 in the seminar room of the hospital. A civic volunteer with the Kolkata Police, Sanjoy Roy, was arrested the following day in connection with the crime, which triggered a nationwide outrage.

Speaking exclusively to India Today TV, the manager of the crematorium, Bholanath Patra, said there was a high chance of the body getting started to decompose as there was a gap of around six hours between the postmortem and the time when they received the body. He said the body was then cremated on priority.

“The body arrived after midnight and there was a high chance of the body being decomposed because the postmortem was done by 6 pm. Usually, bodies arrive after the postmortem, but it hadn’t arrived, and we were on edge. She was also a local female doctor, and the area was crowded at the crematorium with a heavy police presence. So, we cremated her before two other bodies,” Patra told India Today TV.

He said the mother of the trainee doctor was not present at the cremation ground, and it was his brother who registered her details, and that he did not object to the early cremation of his sister.

Asked whether the police directed him to start the cremation early, Patra said, “The police had mentioned that when the body arrives, it will be accompanied by a large crowd. There were at least 10 police vehicles and the area had become congested, making it difficult for people to move around. That’s why the police urged us to speed things up.”

“Her (trainee doctor’s) parents were not present at the cremation ground. Her brother and other relatives came to share the details, and they did not say anything about the cremation, whether to do it early or late,” he said.

The police directed us to do the cremation on priority as there was a huge crowd present at the crematorium, the official further said.

“The entire area was filled with police and people. There was only one route for people to come and go and so the police asked us to hurry up,” he added.