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Home > Mumbai > Mumbai News > Article > Mumbai Kid drowns in sump but doctor says death by hanging

Mumbai: Kid drowns in sump, but doctor says death by hanging

Updated on: 30 July,2017 11:26 AM IST  |  Mumbai
Samiullah Khan | samiullah.khan@mid-day.com

The child was found drowned in an uncovered water sump on Friday, but the post-mortem examination report prepared by the PHC attributed his death to 'asphyxia due to hanging'

Mumbai: Kid drowns in sump, but doctor says death by hanging

As soon as the police realised the error, they allegedly pressured the family of Ayushkumar Patel (inset) to return their copy of the autopsy report
As soon as the police realised the error, they allegedly pressured the family of Ayushkumar Patel (inset) to return their copy of the autopsy report


A primary health centre (PHC) in Nalasopara has come under fire for bungling up the autopsy report of a four-year-old boy.


The child was found drowned in an uncovered water sump on Friday, but the post-mortem examination report prepared by the PHC attributed his death to "asphyxia due to hanging". The doctor in charge of post-mortem examinations said that he was so fatigued by the numerous suicide cases he had seen that he erroneously filled out the boy's report.


Ayushkumar Patel, 4, of Nalasopara's Sri Ram Nagar went missing from near his home on Friday morning. After scouring the area in search of him, his parents found his lifeless body in a water sump of an illegal, under-construction commercial gala, 2 km from home.

Suspecting that the boy had wandered on the premises and fallen into the open sump, the Tulinj police registered an accidental death report and sent the body for an autopsy. By evening, the body was handed over to the parents after the post-mortem, along with a copy of the report, and it was buried at a local cemetery.

Soon after, the child's parents got a call from the police, directing them to return the copy of the autopsy report to them. The police even allegedly questioned the hurry in burying the boy. Suspecting something amiss, the parents showed the autopsy report to a private doctor, who alerted them to the goof-up.

The boy's family confronted the police, and demanded that the body be exhumed and a second post-mortem examination performed. "When the negligence came to light, the police began pressuring the parents to return the post-mortem examination report," said Kumar Shushil Pal, a neighbour of the Patels.

The police appeared to be going soft on the PHC doctor. "He made a mistake, but has now sent us a corrected report," said an official from Tulinj police station.

Raj Tilak Roshan, additional superintendent of police of Palghar district, which has jurisdiction over Nalasopara, said a primary investigation has found that Patel went to the construction site with some friends to play but fell into the water sump. "The doctor mistakenly mentioned death by hanging as the cause of death. The case is still under probe."

A defensive Dr Avinash Dongre, the doctor in the eye of the storm, claimed that at the time the boy's body arrived, he was handling a number of suicide cases. "They were playing on my mind. So, when I began preparing the child's autopsy report, I mistakenly stated hanging as the cause of death. He died of drowning. I sent a corrected report later."

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