Young girl's body from Iran flown back to New Delhi

Varanasi, Aug 12 (UNI) The body of Fatima (22) 'mistakenly' sent to India from Iran in place of the corpse of a 25-year-old engineer from Deoria district of Uttar Pradesh, was put on a New Delhi bound Indian Airlines flight here today.

District Magistrate Rajiv Agrawal told newsperons here that the coffin containing Fatima's body was sealed in the presence of government doctors and then boarded on an Indian Airlines flight to Delhi.

An engineer, Subodh Kumar Tiwari from Barhaj in Deoria district, working in Iran, was killed in a road accident last month. The Iran government sent the body to New Delhi on Tuesday last, following which Subodh's family took the coffin containing the body to their native place in Deoria via road.

The young engineer's family was shocked to find just before the cremation that the coffin did not contain Subodh's body, but instead had the corpse of 22-year-old Fatima.

Following the discovery, the body was brought to Varanasi to be sent back to Delhi, but the Airport Authority in Varanasi refused to let the body on any of the flights to Delhi, as the seal of the coffin was broken.

''The coffin was sealed again and boarded on an IA flight to New Delhi,'' Mr Agrawal said.

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