Bodies of COVID-19 victims were among the bodies discovered to have been dumped in some Indian rivers, an official of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh has revealed.
This was coming even as India recorded about 4,090 deaths on Sunday and daily cases topped 310,892.
‘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,‘ the official, Manoj Kumar Singh said.
‘As a result, bodies have been recovered from rivers in many places.’
The letter dated May 14 was addressed to district heads.
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Singh in the memo 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 dumping.
He asked village-level officials to ensure no corpses are thrown into the 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.
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 neighbouring Bihar in recent days.
‘We keep recovering 10 to 20 bodies every now and then,’ Sehgal told reporters, adding that some riverside villages did not cremate their dead due to Hindu traditions during some periods of religious significance.
state government letter.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
