JORHAT, Feb 3 - The Jorhat district administration by an order has extended the time of preserving the body of the deceased British tourist by another 72 hours at the morgue of the Jorhat Medical College and Hospital, after the first 72 hours since the death passed this morning.
It may be mentioned here that Alastair Neil Macdonald (81), a member of a tourist group from UK, was found dead on January 31 morning on the boat named Charaideo II that was on a cruise on the Brahmaputra from Guwahati to upper Assam tourist spots along the river.
Jorhat Deputy Commissioner Roshni A Korati told The Assam Tribune this evening that as per law, an unclaimed body needs to be disposed of after 72 hours of death by the police after the administration issues an order.
Korati said that as this particular case happens to be of a foreign tourist and with she approaching the British Deputy High Commission in Kolkata over the matter, there was a possibility of dispatching the body of the tourist to his country.
Therefore, she said that she has passed an order to keep the body in the JMCH morgue for another 72 hours. Korati said that a senior official of the British Deputy High Commission told her that the Commission was trying to contact the relatives of the deceased and as per information received by the Commission, Macdonald has no immediate family members. Korati hoped that in the next 72 hours there would be some information from the British Deputy High Commission regarding sending the body back to UK.
Meanwhile, JMCH Principal Professor Atul Baro told this newspaper that the embalmed body kept inside the portable cooling unit (a glass cabinet) borrowed from a cremation ground here by the district administration was in a good condition so far.
The Principal said that doctors were from time to time monitoring the body kept inside the cooling unit.