Three amputated human legs found

17 January 2012, 18:00 PM

Staff Correspondent

Police recovered three amputated human legs from Kalyanpur Lake in the city's Darussalam area yesterday. Officer-in-charge of Darussalam Police Station Abdul Malek said they recovered the legs after being informed by locals at 12:30pm. The legs were sent to Dhaka Medical Collage Hospital (DMCH) morgue for autopsy, he said. According to the source at the morgue, among the legs two were covered by bandages and all the three were amputated from below the knees. Malek said they were suspecting that the legs were dumped in the lake after surgery at any hospital or clinic. The police have been investigating the matter to find out the source of the amputated legs, the OC said. Prof Amjad Hossain, former head of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery of DMCH, told The Daily Star that dumping amputated parts of a body here and there is a criminal offence, more so in a water body. According to the rules concerned, amputated parts of a body will have to be given either to the relatives of the patients who will bury it or to the medical waste collectors. The Department of Health and the Department of Environment can take action against the hospitals and clinics that do not follow the rules, said Khandakar Anisur Rahman, executive director of Prism Bangladesh, a non government organisation that is working jointly with Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) to collect medical waste in DCC area. He said authorities of hospitals and clinics will have to keep amputated parts separately in a packet and inform them. "We collect it from the hospital separately and bury it in Matuail landfill," he added. The incident has also caused panic among the local people.