The corpses come from rail tracks, rivers, accident sites and in various stages of decomposition, but Vinu treats each body with the dignity and care it deserves It was a serene day. The kind that could make anyone forget the weight of their work—anyone except Vinu. In his line of duty, death wasn’t a stranger; more often than not, it felt like a constant companion.
When the phone rang, jolting him from his drifting thoughts, the first thing that flashed across his mind was a familiar question: What kind of death would he encounter today? It was a call from a control room. A pregnant woman had died by suicide, stepping in front of a train near the Aluva Thuruth Bridge. Vinu steeled himself and rushed to the scene.
As he approached the tracks, the grim reality unfolded before him. The woman’s body lay mutilated, severed above the chest. Vinu’s instincts took over, and he methodically collected each fragment and placed them in the police bag.
A short distance away, he found the fully formed foetus, bathed in blood. Vinu’s trained hands checked for a pulse, but it was too late. With a heavy heart, he gathered the infant’s remains and placed them alongside its mother’s.
Vinu has spent 23 years confronting death head-on, retrieving bodies from treacherous and hard-to-reach places, and bearing witness to the darkest moments of human existence. With over 2,000 bodies, including around 1,300 unknown bodies recovered from rivers, railway tracks, accident sites, houses, a.
