Environmentalist finds skull, bones on Bena beach in Vasai

Lisbon Ferrao at Bena beach where he found human remains. Pics/Hanif Patel

An environmentalist had to take the help of mid-day after a policeman's cold response to his discovery of a human skull and bones on the Bena beach in Vasai. Lisbon Ferrao had spotted the skeletal remains late Wednesday evening and informed the police on Thursday morning. This newspaper's enquiries thereafter prompted a probe.

Ferrao approached mid-day after the policeman at Papdi police chowki did not take his report seriously. This newspaper visited the site and saw the remains lying unattended. The lower jaw was missing. "I informed you so that the skull and bones can be collected and sent for forensic analysis," the environmentalist told the correspondent.

"I do a lot of mangrove plantations along the coastal area. I am working with a New Zealand-based NGO and we are trying to map plastics around the coast. So, I was clicking pictures of plastic garbage on Bena beach when I spotted a human skull and bones," Ferrao said.

"I saw the human remains late in the evening on Wednesday and by the time I returned home, it was already dark.

So, I decided to inform the police the next morning, i.e. on Thursday.

"I reached Papdi police chowki in the morning and showed a policeman pictures of the skeletal remains. The policeman told me that these must have washed ashore... I left, as he did not ask for my name or number, or other details. I expected him to act on my report," Ferrao said. "I don't think these have come from the sea, as skulls don't float."

mid-day informed Zonal Deputy Commissioner of Police Sanjay Kumar Patil, who alerted his team at Vasai police station.

Inspector Kalyanrao Karpe, the in-charge of Vasai police station, said, "The human remains have been collected and an Accidental Death Report is being registered. The skull and bones will be sent to the Directorate of Forensic Science Laboratories in Kalina for further investigation."

A specialist in human identification, Dr Hemlata Pandey said that age estimation and sex of the deceased can be determined from the skull. "Using forensic techniques, we can easily reconstruct the face digitally. We first have to scan the skull before reconstructing the face and later on the investigating team can circulate the photographs in all the police stations to ascertain if there is any missing person complaint of a particular age group," said Dr Pandey, a forensic odontologist at Department of Forensic Medicine at KEM Hospital. Finally, DNA can establish the deceased's identity, she added.

The entire process of reconstruction of a face takes a few weeks, she said.

‘Cops dismissed me'

Lisbon Ferrao, environmentalist
‘I went to Papdi police chowki and showed a policeman pictures of the skeletal remains. He told me that these must have washed ashore... I left, as he did not ask for any details'

Remember 2013?

In a similar incident, British birdwatchers spotted a skeleton in the marshes in Vashi on January 28, 2013, and informed the police. Cops established the identity of the victim, Sandhya Singh, the sister of music composer duo Jatin-Lalit and yesteryear actresses Sulakshana and Vijeta Pandit, using the remains. In December that year, they arrested her son Raghuveer, a drug addict who would often fight with Singh over money.