A departed news but not an obsolete one occurrence in our society that comes often in our in our national newspapers in the country. The news was about 15 skeletons of human body went missing from a graveyard in the district of Pabna and it was published in the newspapers about a couple of months back. Following that news we did not get any follow-up of recovering those stolen/missing skeletons. Missing of skeletons from the graveyards is not that much unfamiliar in our society. Often and often we get this sort of news in the media. According to news published in the newspapers that family members rushed to the graveyard and thus it prompted deployment of additional police force in that area.

We know skeletons are required in the medical education and medical students need to know physiology of human body for their course. They also get practical experience of different characters of bone joints after analyzing the character visible in the skeletons. In the medical colleges we find different parts of human body in the dissection rooms. Generally those are derelict dead bodies. No one claims these bodies and ultimately dissection room is the destination of these dead bodies. This is one of the sources of different human bodies and skeletons in the medical colleges and labs of universities, colleges and schools. Other than that some people wish to use their body to be used in medical education and research after their death. In this way medical colleges also get dead bodies for its requirements of medical education. Other than medical education general schools and colleges have labs and biology, zoology are taught there. In those labs we find many human skeletons and skeletons of different kinds of animal. So the market of skeletons of human body and other animals is not that big but it must not be insignificant.

Beyond missing and stealing of skeletons from the graveyards jackals and foxes are active in hunting human bodies in graveyards. Often we come to know this sort of news in the social and electronic media. Jackals and foxes digging and dismantling the graves sometimes is not an unfamiliar in our surroundings.

So it is understood that collecting the human skeletons is not the activities of formal market. We do not know whether any formal market of skeletons functioning in the country. It seems all such skeletons are collected form informal markets. Though everybody knows that this sort of market might have no approval from appropriate authority and it may not have any legal basis.

Human skeletons and its business seem to be very much unethical and religiously not allowed. Persons near and dear to the deceased do not want their close ones dead body and its part to be sold or used elsewhere. It is a very touchy and emotional matter. Willing persons sometimes declare that their body or parts of the body and cornea can be used for research, treatment for other persons after that particular person's death. But in our present society many of us do not want to allow such type of action. Though what will be the fate of a dead body after his death must be the decision of that person. But it is very tough to accept such type of decisions by the close relatives of such persons.

In our country public graveyards, family graveyards are not that much secured. And it seems anybody can enter the graveyards in any time. For that reasons there are ample chances of being stolen of dead body from a graveyard. Even sometimes we see lack of appropriate work for steady burial of a dead body. Many times after heavy downpour graves appear to be open and after that new initiatives are required to rebuild those graves. In this situation jackals, foxes even stray dogs hunt for dead body. So the concerned authority should take proper steps for the security of the graveyards.

We know bones of different animals have commercial viability for producing fertilizer in indigenous way. But business of human skeletons is totally unacceptable religiously and ethically. We all shall have eternal vigilance to stop such actions.

We heard that in the developed countries artificially made human skeletons are used in medical education and research purpose. To stop the selling and buying the human skeletons, concerned authorities should take initiatives to import or produce artificial skeletons.

We have now more than hundreds of public and private medical colleges functioning and at the same time same time thousands of schools and colleges have labs where skeletons are needed for biology and physiology classes. So those institutions need to collect skeletons many times.

Death is inevitable and nothing can stop it but those who are alive have emotional touches with the deceases. Human character is a composite of abstract things. It includes emotion, love, hatred and malevolence. So some people are always in mess of criminal mind and they disregard the law of the land and love, affection get less priority to them. So in these circumstances some people in our society always intend to do illicit and unethical business to make money.

The law-enforcing agencies of our country should take congenial steps to prevent such stealing or missing of skeletons from the different graveyards in the country. And the concerned authority responsible for the security of the graveyards should take steps for appropriate vigilance in the graveyards premises. Persons lying in the graveyards were our family members. Many emotional stories are involved with those deceased persons lying in the graveyards. So it is the utmost responsibility of all of us to keep the deceased bodies in graveyards with dignity and at the same time we all protect the sanctity of the graveyards.

Dr. Syed Nesar Ahmad Rumy, Former Civil Servant, Dhaka