Kerala mosque offers prayer hall for autopsy of landslide victims
Malappuram: Showcasing a rare model of humanism, a mosque in north Kerala has offered its prayer hall to perform autopsy of the people who were killed in a massive landslide at a nearby village last week.
The management of the Salafi Juma Masjid at Pothukal near Nilambur in Malappuram district threw its doors open for the autopsy of the decomposed bodies of the landslide victims cutting across religions.
The mosque is located few kilometres away from Kavalappara, a remote hamlet in the district where a large number of people and children were killed following the landslide last Thursday. Search operations are still on to trace the bodies of the people, who have gone missing and are feared to have been buried alive.
The remoteness of the place and practical difficulties in shifting the decomposed bodies to the nearest hospital, which is at least 45 km away, have forced the authorities to look for a temporary facility for post-mortem.
When the police and authorities approached the mosque management with the request, they wholeheartedly offered a portion of their prayer hall and other facilities for performing the autopsy. Thus, the prayer hall is now working as a makeshift autopsy centre and study tables there are used for post-mortem, health authorities said.
The bodies of nearly 30 people, recovered after days of searches, were brought at the mosque for autopsy till Wednesday, they said.
The noble gesture came to light after Parameswaran, a staff in the government medical college, Manjeri, posted a video of the prayer hall and the makeshift autopsy facility on social media. He said it was one of the finest examples of communal harmony prevailing in the state.
While delivering the Independence Day speech in Thiruvananthapuram, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday lavished praised on the mosque management, saying it was a great model of communal harmony and secularism the state can proudly present before the country.
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MP: Woman, lover conspire to get husband killed; police looking for contract killer
Dhar (MP) (PTI): A 25-year-old woman and her lover have been arrested in the district for allegedly conspiring to kill her husband by hiring a contract killer, police said on Thursday.
The case was solved within 36 hours of the murder though the woman initially tried to mislead the police by claiming that robbers killed her husband, an official said.
Dev Krishna Purohit (28) was stabbed to death on the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday at his house in Gondikheda Charan village, about 60 km from here.
Superintendent of Police Mayank Awasthi told reporters that accused Priyanka Purohit (25) was married to Dev Krishna when she was around 15 years old. Priyanka moved to her matrimonial home after attaining adulthood but was unwilling to live with her husband, leading to frequent disputes between them.
During investigation, it emerged that she was in a relationship with Kamlesh (32), the SP said.
The duo allegedly hatched a plan to kill Dev Krishna and hired a man identified as Surendra for Rs 1 lakh do the job, he said
After Dev Krishna was killed, Priyanka told police that unidentified persons broke into the house, attacked her husband with a sharp weapon while holding her captive in another room, and fled with valuables.
But the inconsistencies in her statements raised suspicion, and eventually she confessed to hatching the murder conspiracy, the SP said.
While she and Kamlesh were arrested, police are looking for the contract killer, the official added.
