No skeletons on the New Delhi metro, please


A friend of mine, freelance photographer Jane Shepherdson, was recently in New Delhi and rode on the city’s metro (subway system). She captured this odd sign about what’s prohibited for passengers to carry.

Some of it is predictable, such as explosives, guns, and radioactive materials. You also can’t carry “manure of any kind” (including your own, one would suppose) or rags. That includes oily rags in case you’re wondering.

What really caught her eye was the prohibition against passengers carrying “Human skeleton, ashes, and part of Human body”.

Makes sense to me. When I’m on public transport I only want to share it with the living. What’s scary, though, is that they wouldn’t have put this sign up unless someone had actually carried body parts on the metro. So if you’re going to New Delhi, please, leave the body parts in your hotel room.

Southwest Airlines seizes shipment of human heads from cargo department

View more news videos at: http://www.nbcdfw.com/video.


Of all the “baggage issues” we’ve covered here on Gadling, this is by far the weirdest/most disgusting. A Southwest Airlines employee contacted police when an incorrectly labeled package turned out to contain 40 to 60 human heads.

The heads were on their way to a Fort Worth medial research company, but the local coroner says the shipment had “discrepancies”. According to NBC news in Forth Worth, the company that supplied the heads had their license revoked back in December.

Now, I think we should all spend a moment to think of the horror the poor Southwest Airlines employee has been through – opening a cargo box to discover 60 heads staring at you is a sight he or she will most likely not forget any time soon.

Update: As Southwest airlines correctly points out in the comments, the heads never made it onto a plane – a Southwest Airlines cargo staff member followed all procedures and contacted local authorities before the package was accepted. Kudos to them and everyone at Southwest Airlines for preventing this shipment from making it onto a plane.