A Mumbai family preserved the body of an 80-year-old man for four years after his death, spending more than INR 50 lacs and exploring whether it could eventually be sent to a cryonics facility in the United States (US), police have said.
The family’s arrangement came to light on Monday night when Kurar police received a tip-off and visited a polyclinic in Malad, where they found the man’s body inside a freezer.
The man died in 2022 after suffering from cancer, kidney failure and other age-related ailments. His family initially kept his body in a freezer at their home in Malad before moving it to the clinic after redevelopment work began at their residential building.
According to police, the man’s wife and two adult children were deeply affected by his death and could not bring themselves to perform his last rites. The family, including a daughter who is a lawyer, researched cryonics and contacted organisations in the US that provide long-term preservation services for people after legal death.
Police said that the family also consulted lawyers in India to understand the legalities of preserving the body and explored the possibility of transporting it to a facility in the US.
The family spent more than INR 50 lacs on preserving the body over the four-year period, police confirmed.
The family’s research focused on preserving the man’s body in the hope that future advances in science could one day make revival possible.
Cryonics involves preserving a legally dead person at extremely low temperatures in an attempt to maintain the body until future technology could potentially reverse the damage caused by death. The process remains experimental and there is currently no established method for reviving a person preserved through cryonics.
US-based private cryonics organisations offer different preservation services, including preparing bodies for long-term storage and transporting them to specialised facilities. The family had been exploring these options while also seeking legal advice in India, police said.
The body remained at the Malad clinic even though the premises had been shut for about a month for renovation. Police said that neither the clinic management nor the property owner knew that the body had been kept there.
Relatives and neighbours, however, were aware of the arrangement, according to police.
After questioning the family, clinic management and the property owner, police ruled out foul play and said that the man had died of natural causes. The family also provided documents relating to his death, police said.
