The Aam Aadmi Party-led Punjab government came under sharp criticism from the BJP following an incident at the Guru Gobind Singh Medical College and Hospital, where hospital staff allegedly dumped the body of an unclaimed deceased patient outside a local cremation ground.

The incident, which occurred on Tuesday, allegedly involved staff members of the hospital's surgical ward and has triggered widespread outrage over the handling of the body.

Reacting to the incident, Paramjit Singh Kainth, Vice-President of the BJP Scheduled Caste Morcha, Punjab, termed the act "shameful, inhuman and unacceptable." He said the incident belied the Bhagwant Mann government's claims of bringing about a "health revolution" in the state and reflected serious shortcomings in Punjab's healthcare system.

Kainth said merely suspending lower-level employees was not enough and demanded that Health and Medical Education Minister Dr Balbir Singh take moral and administrative responsibility for the lapse. He also sought a time-bound, high-level inquiry to identify the protocol failures that led to the alleged abandonment of the body.

He urged the government to ensure that all state-run medical colleges strictly follow legal and ethical protocols for the dignified handling of patients and the deceased.

"Every human being deserves to be treated with dignity, even after death. This is not just a failure of one hospital; it is a painful reflection of a deteriorating healthcare system that relies more on advertisements than actual ground reforms," Kainth said.

The Punjab government and the hospital administration are yet to issue a detailed statement on the incident or specify the disciplinary action taken against the surgical ward staff allegedly involved.