Bhopal, Aug 4 (IANS): The body of a young man has disappeared from the mortuary of Hamidia Hospital in this Madhya Pradesh capital city, and authorities fear the corpse may have been handed over to wrong claimants, the police said on Thursday.

According to the police, the young man was electrocuted while he attempted to commit a theft in the M.P. Nagar area here. 

While the body was yet to be identified, the police deposited it at the mortuary of the Hamidia Hospital after post-mortem examination.

Subsequently, one Rasheed Khan and his family identified the deceased as his son Imran, 18, after seeing a picture posted on the social media.

The family approached the police on Wednesday to claim the body, but it turned out that the body had already been taken away from the mortuary.

Superintendent of Police (Bhopal South) Anshuman Singh told reporters that bodies are handed over to the claimants only in the presence of police, implying that the medico-legal institute of the hospital might have committed a grave error in allowing wrong people to claim the body.

Director of the medico-legal institute Ashok Sharma admitted that his staff might have allowed wrong people to claim the body on the assumption that the corpse had already been identified.