Theft of human skeletons

Human skeletons are in high demand among medical students for their anatomy courses. Organised gangs of criminals often steal human remains from graves for making a quick buck from the sale of skeletons. Incidents of theft of human remains are increasing day by day in Bangladesh. According to the media, the graves that are adjacent to highways are the main target of the skeleton thieves. Medical colleges and their students are the main buyers of these stolen skeletons. Usually, students buy one complete human skeleton for Tk 60,000 and the colleges spend Tk 0.1 to 0.15 million to buy one skeleton.

Graveyard is no doubt a sacred place for us. The relatives of the buried people often visit the graveyards to pray for their loved ones. When they come to know that the body of their favourite person has been stolen, they feel dejected and helpless. For the sake of their emotional attachment, stealing of human skeleton should come to an end. In many countries in the world, artificial human skeletons are popular when it comes to medical education. We could possibly make use of such artificial skeletons popular in our country and with this take every action to stop stealing of human remains in the graveyard.

MA Islam

Dhanmondi, Dhaka