Man keeps dead wife's body in freezer; woman's brother alleges murder
husband says she died of jaundice
Rewa (MP), Jul 2: Police on Sunday recovered the body of a woman kept in a mortuary freezer at her house in Rewa district of Madhya Pradesh after her brother alleged in a complaint that she was killed by her husband, while the latter claimed that she died of jaundice, an official said.
The woman's husband said she died on Friday and he kept the body in the freezer at home as he waited for their son's return from Mumbai for her funeral, he said.
The police sent the woman's body for a post-mortem to know the cause of her death.
"We recovered the body of a 40-year-old woman, identified as Sumitri, after her brother Abhay Tiwari complained to us that his brother-in-law killed her in a hush-hush manner," police inspector of the City Kotwali police station Vijay Singh told PTI.
"However, the deceased woman's husband Bharat Mishra said he kept her body in a freezer at his house for their son's return home from Mumbai for the funeral," he said.
The police official said they have sent her body for post-mortem to ascertain the cause of her death.
"Her husband told us that she was suffering from jaundice and died due to it on June 30," he added.
In his complaint, Tiwari alleged that neither his brother-in-law Mishra nor his family informed him or his relatives about his sister's death, and he came to know about it this morning, the inspector said.
The complainant alleged that Mishra used to beat his sister and that she might have died due to it.
"We have admitted the complaint and are waiting for the autopsy report to act accordingly," Singh said.
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SC to hear pleas for reviewing wages of priests, temple staff
New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Monday a plea to constitute a judicial commission or an expert committee to review the wages and other benefits given to priests, 'sevadars' and temple staff in state-controlled temples.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta is likely to hear the PIL filed by advocate Ashwini Upadhyay.
The plea, filed through advocate Ashwani Dubey, seeks directions to the Centre and states to constitute a judicial commission or an expert committee to review the remuneration and other benefits given to the priests and temple staff in state-controlled temples.
"Petitioner also seeks a declaration that priests and temple staff are employee' under Section 2(k) of the Code on Wages, 2019. Petitioner submits that once the State assumes the administrative, economic and financial control over temples, an employer-employee relationship arises and denial of dignified wages to priests and temple staff violates the right to livelihood guaranteed under Article 21," it said.
Upadhyay said the cause of action accrued on April 4, when he went to Varanasi to attend a public programme and after performing 'Rudrabhishek' in the Kashi Vishwanath temple, which is controlled by the state, he came to know that even the minimum wages to live with dignity are not given to the priests and temple staff.
"Recently, in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, priests and temple staff organised a large-scale protest demanding the minimum wages. Priests and temple staff are not getting even the minimum wage prescribed by the State for unskilled and semi-skilled workers. This is a systemic exploitation. State is acting as a model employer through the endowments department, but violating the minimum wages Act and the directive principles of state policy (Article 43)," it said.
The plea further said the continued refusal to meet the minimum wages with the 2026 inflation-adjusted cost of living index has forced the petitioner to seek judicial intervention to prevent the further marginalisation of priests and temple staff.
Upadhyay further said the precarious nature of livelihood was starkly exposed on February 7, 2025, when a Tamil Nadu department issued a circular at the 'Dandayuthapani Swami Temple' in Madurai, strictly prohibiting priests from accepting 'dakshina' in 'aarti plates'.
"It is necessary to state that priests in such temples often receive no formal salary from the State and rely entirely on 'Dakshina'; the State's administrative order directly threatened them with starvation. Although withdrawn due to public outrage, the incident highlights the State's arbitrary power over the survival of the priests. This is also a bitter truth that States are controlling lakhs of temples but not a single mosque or church," the PIL claimed.
The petition, alternatively, sought direction to the Centre and states to take appropriate steps for the welfare of priests, sevadars and other temple staff in the spirit of the Allahabad High Court's earlier judgments.
