A destitute woman's body was taken to the Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH) in Muzaffarpur in a garbage cart.

Muzaffarpur: A destitute woman's body was taken to the Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH) in Muzaffarpur in a garbage cart for autopsy, prompting the District Magistrate to order a probe into the matter.

"We have ordered a probe into the unfortunate incident (corpus of a destitute woman being pulled inside a garbage cart to be taken for post-mortem at SKMCH)...strict action will be taken against those found responsible for negligence," District Magistrate Dharmendra Singh said on Friday.

Muzaffarpur District Civil Surgeon Dr Lalita Singh too expressed disgust over the incident and said that a probe was on in the matter.

She said that the SKMCH has several mortuary vans which could have been pressed into service to bring the destitute woman's body for post-mortem.

The destitute woman had died near a park inside the SKMCH hospital on Wednesday last after battling illness for over two weeks.

After her death, the woman's body was put in a garbage cart by two hospital employees on way to being taken for post-mortem, an incident that has shocked the civil society after several news channels beamed footage of the incident.

A gardener Kanchan Bhagat, employed by SKMCH, said that he had noticed the ailing woman writhing in pain and had informed doctors about it. He alleged that none of them paid any attention to her.

After battling illness for two weeks, she died on Wednesday last, Bhagat said.