French tourist's body recovered

PURI, FEB. 25. The police has recovered the body of a French tourist from a second class waiting hall inside the railway station here this morning.

The French national, who possessed a tourist visa, was identified as Bernard Graviel Charles (48), the police said. Charles had reached the pilgrim city last Friday by the Talcher- Puri passenger train in an unconscious state. The railway police shifted him to the district headquarters hospital here where he was found to be suffering from pneumonia and diarrhoea resulting in dehydration.

As his condition deteriorated, the doctors referred Charles to the S.C.B. Medical college hospital at Cuttack yesterday. Though the police is inquiring into how the French national returned to Puri, it is suspected that the tourist may have escaped from the hospital before succumbing to the ailment. A case of unnatural death has been registered and the body preserved after post- mortem, the police said.

The Superintendent of Police, Mr. Debasish Panigrahi, said that the French Embassy in Delhi and the Consulate in Calcutta had been intimated.

- PTI

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