Father preserves son's body in quest of justice

A distraught father has preserved the body of his son, who died more than a fortnight ago, in a freezer and has said that he will cremate the body only after a case for murder is registered.

Shivank Pathak, 32, died under mysterious circumstances in Delhi on August 1.

The father, Shiv Prasad Pathak, approached a local court, seeking orders to lodge an FIR. He wants the police to conduct a second post mortem on his son to ascertain the cause of death.

Shiv Prasad's father, a retired army man, claims that his son had called him a few days before he died, and said that he feared that he may be murdered or implicated in a criminal case.

"Until a case is registered, I will not perform the last rites of my son. Till then his body will be preserved in a deep freezer," he told reporters.

Shivank's younger brother Eshank, who works with Railways and is posted in Lucknow, said that the Delhi Police had not lodged any FIR in connection with his brother's death. They had also not provided a copy of the post mortem report to the family, he said.

"My sister-in-law Gurleen Kaur called my sister Poonam Mishra, who stays in Delhi, and informed her that Shivank had fainted and turned pale. When she took my brother to the hospital, the doctors declared him dead," he said.

Eshank and his father reached Delhi on August 2 morning, but till then doctors had conducted the post mortem examination.

"Thereafter, I reached the Begumpur police station, but got no assistance from the police. We then approached a Delhi court, but the court rejected the case. We had no option but to return home. We also brought his body here and have now approached a local court," he said.

He further alleged that his sister-in-law and her father wanted to usurp property of his brother.

Shivank had started a private call centre in Delhi in 2011 and in 2013 married Gurleen. They also have a one-year-old daughter Shonaya.