HELL HOLE: The morgue at Sambhunath Pandit Hospital. Picture by Amit Datta

Visham Roy was no exception. If there is a corpse in the Sambhunath Pandit Hospital morgue, it will be feasted on by rats or cockroaches or ants.

The hospital authorities will never admit it — even after the furore over Roy’s body, nibbled at by rats on Tuesday night — but the real story tumbles out once you meet the right set of insiders.

“Roy’s is not a one-off case. A month-and-a-half ago, rats had nibbled at the face of a male corpse in the morgue. There was no hue and cry, as the body had no claimants,” said Raju Mallick, a Group-D employee working at the morgue for the past two decades. He is helped by two others.

“A week ago, we had warned the ward masters about the rats. One of them gave us a red cake-like object which was to be fed to the rats. But it had no impact,” said an employee.

When the ward master was told about it, he reportedly snapped: “Do we now need to keep the bodies in our pockets?”

Asked about Roy’s corpse, hospital superintendent T.K. Manna said: “We have set up a committee that will talk to all concerned and find out what went wrong.”

The health department, however, has passed the blame on to the hospital authorities. Health services director Sanchita Bakshi said: “The air-conditioners, lights and other facilities in the morgue were repaired. The hospital authorities should have told us about any persisting problems.”

A health department official on Thursday visited the hospital and expressed concern over the state of the morgue. “He sought explanations from the superintendent and ward masters,” said an official of the department.