Gurugram man returns home alive after family cremates body believed to be his

The Gurugram police found themselves in a dilemma when the family of a missing person identified a deceased individual as their relative and cremated the body, only to have the missing person return home the next day. The police registered a murder case against unknown person at the Sector 37 police station and are now trying to identify the cremated person.

According to the police, the missing person was believed to be 47-year-old Poojan Prasad, a labour contractor residing in the Mohammadpur Jharsa village with his wife and three sons. When Poojan Prasad failed to return home for several days, his son Sandeep Kumar filed a missing complaint on September 1.

The confusion began on August 28 when the police recovered a body with a severed head near an abandoned warehouse in the Sector 37 police station area. Upon contacting the police about his missing father, Sandeep Kumar was informed about the discovered body. Sandeep and other family members visited the mortuary, where Sandeep identified the body as his father’s based on an injury mark on the right leg and similar clothing.

Convinced that Poojan was dead, the family cremated the body at Ram Bagh cremation ground on Pataudi Road on Tuesday and performed the last rites. However, on Wednesday, while preparing to immerse the ashes in the Yamuna, Poojan’s sons received a call from their maternal uncle, Rahul Prasad, who had spotted Poojan alive at Khandsa Chowk.

Rahul brought Poojan home in an auto-rickshaw, and when Sandeep and his elder brother Aman returned, they found their father sitting calmly at home. This unexpected turn of events has left both the family and investigators puzzled, raising questions about the identity of the cremated person.

Inspector Shahid Ahmad, SHO of the Sector 37 police station, stated, “This was a human error on the part of the missing person’s family, but we are working to identify the person who was cremated. We have preserved DNA samples of the body for matching, which will aid in identification. Further investigation is underway.”

Police spokesperson Sandeep Kumar explained that the police cannot withhold bodies if families identify them based on clothing, scars, or marks. The same procedure is followed even in cases of decomposed bodies. In this instance, the family insisted that the body was Poojan Prasad, and it was handed over to them.