A homeless Indian man who had been pronounced dead woke up on an autopsy table, shocking hospital staff who were about to begin a post-mortem, authorities said Tuesday.

Police in Mumbai said they found the man, who has not been named, unconscious and suffering from multiple infections on Sunday morning and took him to the local hospital. A doctor at the Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital certified the man as dead and sent the body for autopsy, Ashok Dudhe, Mumbai Police deputy commissioner said.

“As the autopsy was about to begin, the man awoke triggering chaos after which the doctors rushed to the room. Then they snatched the death certificate from my staff and tore it up,” Dudhe said.

Hospital dean Dr. Suleman Merchant said the police forced the error by asking doctors to examine the man on the road outside the hospital, because they were busy with security arrangements for a visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “They forced my doctor to examine the patient on the roadside as they wanted to rush back to the prime minister’s security duty,” Merchant said.

“Had the police allowed my staff to take the man indoors, they might have been able to do a better job,” he said.

The man is being treated in the hospital for severe malnutrition, suspected alcoholism and substance abuse, Merchant said.

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