By Krishna N. Das
NEW DELHI, May 15 (Reuters) – Bodies of COVID-19 victims
have been found dumped in some Indian rivers, a state government
letter seen by Reuters says, in the first official
acknowledgement of the alarming practice, which it said may stem
from poverty and fear of the disease in remote areas.
Images of corpses drifting down the Ganges river, which is
considered holy in Hinduism, have shocked the country, reeling
under the world’s worst surge in COVID-19 cases.
Although media reports have linked the increase in the
number of bodies found floating in the river and its tributaries
in recent days to the pandemic, India’s northern state of Uttar
Pradesh, home to 240 million people, has until now not publicly
revealed the cause of the deaths.
“The administration has information that bodies of those who
have succumbed to COVID-19 or any other disease are being thrown
into rivers instead of being disposed of as per proper rituals,”
a senior state official, Manoj Kumar Singh, said in a letter
dated May 14 to district heads that was reviewed by Reuters.
“As a result, bodies have been recovered from rivers in many
places.”
Singh was not immediately reachable for comment.
The acknowledgment comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi on
Saturday called on officials to strengthen healthcare resources
in rural areas and step up surveillance as the virus spreads
rapidly in those areas after ravaging the cities.
Uttar Pradesh, home to more people than Brazil or Pakistan,
has been badly hit by India’s dramatic second surge in COVID-19
cases. Health experts say many cases are now going undetected in
the villages of Uttar Pradesh, where most of its people live.
Singh in the memo to district heads said a lack of funds to
buy materials like firewood for cremation, religious beliefs in
some communities, and families abandoning COVID-19 victims for
fear of the disease, were among the likely reasons for the surge
in body dumpings.
He asked village-level officials to ensure no corpses are
thrown into water and said the state government would pay poor
families of the dead 5,000 rupees ($68) each to cremate or bury
bodies. The state has also asked police to patrol rivers to stop
the practice.
India has been officially reporting around 4,000 deaths each
day from the disease for nearly two weeks, but health experts
say the toll is likely much higher due to poor testing in rural
areas and other factors.
The jump in deaths has in many places led to backlogs at
crematoriums and multiplied the cost of last rites.
Uttar Pradesh spokesman Navneet Sehgal on Saturday denied
local media reports that as many as 2,000 corpses of potential
COVID-19 victims had been recovered from rivers in the state and
neighboring Bihar in recent days.
“We keep recovering 10 to 20 bodies every now and then,”
Sehgal told Reuters, adding that some riverside villages did not
cremate their dead due to Hindu traditions during some periods
of religious significance.
Bihar officials did not respond to requests for comment.
(Reporting by Krishna N. Das; Additional reporting by Saurabh
Sharma; Editing by Euan Rocha, William Maclean)
Source: Newmax
