Kolkata: In a bizarre incident, a severed fingertip of a chemical engineer from Kolkata went missing from the hospital hours before it was to be stitched back in an operation on Thursday.

The victim’s wife later lodged a police complaint claiming that the hospital staff did not preserve the finger as they were busy watching the World Cup semifinal between India and New Zealand, the Times of India reported.

According to the police, Nilotpal Chakraborty met with an accident on Wednesday in which the tip of his left ring finger got severed. One of his colleagues picked up the severed finger and brought it to the private hospital in south Kolkata where Chakraborty was admitted.

The victim’s wife Chayanika said that the severed finger was deposited at the hospital’s emergency desk. “We requested the hospital staff to preserve it as the surgery was scheduled for Thursday morning,” she said.

Chakraborty was to be operated upon on Thursday morning but the hospital staff could not locate the finger. After about two hours of search, the hospital declared that the finger had gone missing.

Chayanika alleged that most of the staff was busy watching the World Cup semifinal match when she and her husband arrived for treatment on Wednesday.

However, the hospital later claimed that the severed tip could not have been stitched back and was useless but said that it was investigating the matter.

The police are investigating the matter and asked the hospital to share CCTV footage from the day of the incident.