Kapurthala, Punjab: In a bizarre turn of events, a family in Punjab’s Kapurthala performed the last rites of a man they believed was their missing son, only to discover nearly three weeks later that he was alive and lodged in jail.
Ravi Kumar, a resident of Kadupur in Kapurthala, had reportedly left home on August 5 and failed to return. After searching for him without success, his father and brother approached the Kapurthala City Police Station on August 11 and filed a missing person report.
Around the same time, police informed the family that the burnt body of a young man had been recovered. The family was shown photographs of the body. A few days later, family members and others reportedly identified the remains as those of Ravi Kumar, reported NDTV.
Believing that their son had died, the family cremated the body on August 13 and later performed the traditional prayer ceremony.
However, their grief turned into shock and disbelief on September 2, when they received a phone call from an employee of the Central Jail in Kapurthala. The caller informed them that a man named Ravi Kumar was lodged in the jail.
According to preliminary information, Ravi had been arrested by Jalandhar Police about a month earlier in a case related to loitering and was subsequently lodged in the Central Jail.
The family was left stunned by the revelation. The following day, they went to the jail and were overjoyed to find Ravi Kumar alive.
The incident has raised questions over how the unidentified body was mistakenly identified as Ravi’s and how the family came to perform his last rites despite him being in police custody.
Police are now expected to investigate the circumstances surrounding the mistaken identification and establish the identity of the person whose body was cremated.