A police officer dumped a plastic bag containing parts of the body of a woman in her 80s at a garbage collection point at a Tokyo police station in July by mistake and some of them remain unrecovered, the police said Friday.

According to the Metropolitan Police Department, the officer in his 20s attached to Mejiro Police Station was aware that the bag contained human remains but discarded them because he thought they were unimportant due to their small size.

(CC0/Public Domain)

The bag was retrieved later from a garbage collector but some of the remains were missing, the police said.

The woman in her 80s was killed on July 26 after being hit by a train in Tokyo's Toshima Ward and the police are investigating the case as either an accident or a suicide.

The police officer discarded the bag at the garbage collection point later in the day. When the police conducted an autopsy on the body on the following day, they realized some of her body parts were missing.

When the bag was retrieved on July 28, it was found to be ruptured.