Relatives abandon orphan girl’s body

The body of a garment worker, who allegedly committed suicide early today, has been left abandoned in Dhaka Medical College morgue as her relatives are unwilling to take responsibility of the burial, citing financial constraint.

Shahnaz, 18, who lost her father around 10 years ago and mother around five years ago, used to live at her distant grandfather’s house with younger sister.

The only breadwinner of the family, she used to provide for the educational expense of her sister working at a garment factory. 

She allegedly committed suicide around 1:45am following an altercation with her boyfriend earlier that night, said Enamul Huq, officer-in-charge of Mugda Police Station.

Now Anjuman-e-Mofidul Islam, a charitable organisation that carries out burials of unidentified bodies, will bury her; thanks to the negligence of her distant uncle Golam Hossain Golap, a resident of Gopibagh.

Talking to The Daily Star, Golap said that he is unable to take the body for burial due to financial hardship.

When asked, why he doesn’t contact the city corporation authorities seeking their help in burying the body, he said, it matters little who buries the body. “Whether I or Anjuman whoever buries, it’s all the same,” Golap said.

Asked how much it costs to bury a body, he said around Tk 2,500.

Golap, however, said that he will take the responsibility of Shahnaz’s younger sister Shahinur, 12, a sixth-grader.

“I will educate her like my own daughter,” he said.

The OC told The Daily Star that he asked her relatives to burry body but they requested him to handover the body to Anjuman-e-Mofidul Islam.

An unnatural death case was filed with the police station, he added.