“Losing your loved one is indeed a pain, but what is more painful is to wait for their body for days. My cousin Shahid was killed three days back. The hospital is just not releasing the body,” said Mohd Rashid, his eyes brimming with tears.

For the second day, families of the dead waited outside the mortuary of Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) Hospital, where most of those injured in the violence in north-east Delhi were taken for treatment.

The delay is due to autopsies, hospital authorities said on condition of anonymity. The hospital had to create a medical board of five doctors to oversee autopsies. That was done only by Wednesday morning, two days after the first deaths were reported.

“The request for creating the medical board – just to ensure no questions are raised later – has to come from the police. The police also has to complete some paperwork before the autopsies can be done. Our doctors are ready to do it,” said a senior official from the hospital on condition of anonymity.

The bodies of the two of the people who died at central Delhi’s Lok nayak hospital will also be preserved for 72 hours, doctors from the hospital said.

A medical board was yet to be formed here.

Of the five who died on Monday, only the body of head constable Ratan Lal was released on Tuesday after autopsy.

Mohd Furkan succumbed to bullet injuries on Monday evening. His brother Mohammad Imran has been coming to the hospital at 10am every day since for his body.

Several others waited for the news of their missing loved ones. Mohsin Ali’s cousin, Haider Ali, kept showing his photograph to doctors and hospital staff enquiring where he could be found. He was in the mortuary.

Mudassir Abbas, brother of Ashfaq Hussain, had a similar story. “Ashfaq was an electrician and was shot near Brijpuri Puliya at 6pm on Tuesday. He died saving a group of women near a mosque. We have no idea how long our wait will continue,” Abbas said.

Ashfaq had got married on February 14.

The Injured

At GTB hospital, Vivek Chaudhary who had been brought in with a drill bit in his head underwent a surgery and recovered on Wednesday. “He is walking and talking. He is fine. Thank god,” said his sister Babita.

Asghar Ali, 26, who works as a driver in a Gurgaon-based firm, was brought in at the Jag Pravesh Chandra hospital at around 2:30 pm with injuries to his head, shoulders and arms. “I was stopped by a mob in Karawal Nagar. They told me to get off the car and asked my name. As soon as they saw a talisman in my car, they started to beat me with sticks and rods. They set my car on fire and snatched my phone,” he said.

Ali was rescued by some policemen and rushed to the hospital. “I would have died there if the policemen would not have reached there,” he said.

At Lok Nayak Hospital, the toll of injured reached to 41 on Wednesday evening. Two of them were declared dead.

Blaming BJP leader Kapil Mishra for the attack, Mohammad Irshad, brother of a victim said, “This is the result of his hate mongering. Why police is not taking any action against him?”