A government directive aimed at ensuring that bereaved families receive the bodies of their loved ones without prolonged waits appears to be facing implementation gaps in Lucknow, with several recent cases at the King George’s Medical University (KGMU) postmortem house showing delays of several hours and, in some instances, overnight.
The directive was aimed at reducing the hardship faced by relatives during an already traumatic period. Deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak had directed officials on June 27, 2025, that postmortems should be conducted within four hours and bodies handed over to families without unnecessary delays.
However, in cases where families inform us that they have to take the body outside the district, efforts are made to give such cases priority. “As a result, KGMU continues to handle an excessive post-mortem workload despite having limited staff and resources. Similarly, if a family requests a delay due to personal or logistical reasons, the autopsy is deferred accordingly.
KGMU spokesperson Prof KK Singh said that although the government had proposed dividing Lucknow into different zones and designating major institutions such as SGPGI, RMLIMS and KGMU as centres for conducting autopsies, the proposed system had not yet been implemented. These factors also affect the time taken to hand over bodies to relatives,” Prof Singh said. The post-mortem examination of Manas Bajpayee, who allegedly shot his sister Sheeba Bajpayee before turning the gun on himself, was also delayed by around five hours, according to relatives. They said another doctor on the authorised panel had to contact the forensic expert before the procedure was eventually conducted.
