Shock as police exhume corpse
Bonte Seepi | Thursday October 26, 2017 15:49
This comes after the police received reports that the deceased, who had initially been thought to have committed suicide, was possibly assaulted to death by her father who later allegedly staged her death.
Serowe Police Station commander, superintendent Molefhe Molefhe said police received a report two weeks ago that the deceased had committed suicide in the toilet of her pre-school. “She was then taken to the hospital by her parents where she was confirmed dead by medical doctors and then buried. To our surprise, on Monday some of the victim’s relatives in the village came to the police with other reports that the woman had not really committed suicide but, had in fact been assaulted by her father and a cover up undertaken to make it appear as if she killed herself,” explained Molefhe.
He said when there are such rumours, the police have to clear the air and thus they were forced to make an application for exhumation of the deceased’s body for postmortem. Results of the postmortem are now awaited.
“We couldn’t just ignore the rumours spreading around the village because people live with each other and they know each other’s lives. Even though we do not know why people have been quiet until after the burial, we have to clear the air to avert future allegations,” he said.
He said after the postmortem the re-burial process was undertaken.
However, Molefhe said there had been no reason initially to suspect the father of the deceased as he had not been the one to identify the suicide scene. Instead, the deceased woman’s brother is the one who approached the police with the report that his sister had killed herself.
The woman’s parents had not insisted on a postmortem, ostensibly because they believed their child killed herself.
“It is so disturbing that people always have something to say about the death of others and it traumatises the family and friends of the deceased who had already found closure.
“It is a pity because allegations can’t just be dismissed, but people must learn to say their allegations as early as possible so that post-mortems can be conducted to clear the mist without having to exhume bodies.”