BUSINESS in human skeleton is horrifying but on the rise to suggest how far human beings can go to make ill-gotten fortune. What is totally dismaying is that not the thieves and burglars, a section of our physicians are engaging in the high value dirty trade. They are retaining bodies of dead people at hospitals and also luring criminals to dig out corpses out of graves and put them on sale through secret business network.
The New Nation on Sunday reported that such illegal business is booming across the country as demand of human skeleton for medical education and other purposes is on the rise. Syndicates are running the business and it is not that the law enforcers don’t know about it.
Police recovered at least 38 human skulls and some bones from a flat in capital’s Kafrul area on November 5 and arrested one. A physician was living in the flat and he confessed that his seniors are also involved in the racket. Earlier in June last year, 13 bodies were stolen from the city’s Jurain graveyard and in May seven corpses were stolen from a graveyard in Ashulia. Thieves also removed 23 bodies from a Gazipur graveyard. As per estimate around four thousand pieces of human skeletons are needed for students of the country’s medical and dental colleges where over eight thousand students get admission into government and private colleges each year. Besides over five thousand pieces of skeletons are smuggled into India mainly because of the fact that the Indians cremate the bodies and their collection is not possible.
Reports said a thief sell a human body at Tk 20,000 and it is sold again at around Tk 50,000 after decomposing the flesh and perishable organs. The syndicate members earn around Tk 30 crore annually from the inhuman trade.
We can’t let criminal gangs to run the illegal and inhuman business defying the sanctity of the dead persons. Moreover involvement of physicians in the business is most repugnant and they must be critically dealt with. It is true that medical students need skeleton to study human anatomy. Medical Colleges collect abandoned bodies for the purpose. Many donate their body and one can also take permission from families for use of the human body for medical purpose.
But digging out bodies from graves is a criminal act of highest order and why the law enforcers are not destroying the network and putting them on trial is the big question. Many believe that some unholy nexus may be at work to run the trade. In our view graveyards must have their strict security system to protect the dead. No family will be at peace if it knows the body of its beloved ones is no more at his resting place. It is totally unacceptable to the nation.
