Hundreds of bodies found buried in shallow graves along Indian riverbanks
(The AEGIS Alliance) – PRAYAGRAJ, INDIA – Authorities are communicating with residents in north India to look into the recovery of bodies laid to rest in shallow sand graves or even washing ashore on the Ganges River banks, triggering supposition on social media sites that they were actually the bodily remains of COVID-19 victims.
In jeeps as well as watercraft, the authorities made use of transportable speakers along with microphones talking to folks and telling them to not dispose of the physical bodies in waterways. “We are here to help you perform the last rites,” authorities stated.
On Friday, rainfalls revealed the cloth coverings of bodies laid to rest in shallow sand graves on the shore in Prayagraj, an area in Uttar Pradesh state.
On Sunday Navneet Sehgal, a state government representative refuted local area media reports that greater than 1,000 remains of Covid-19 victims had been discovered coming from waterways over the last couple of weeks. “I bet these bodies have nothing to do with Covid-19,” he claimed.
He stated some residents didn’t cremate their dead, as is traditional, because of a Hindu custom during the course of some time periods of religious importance and disposed of them in waterways or even digging graves on shores.
K.P. Singh, a senior law enforcement officer, pointed out authorities had allocated a cremation ground for those that perished from Covid-19 on the Prayagraj riverbank and the authorities were no more permitting any sort of burials on the riverfront.
Sehgal state authorities have discovered “a small number” of bodies on the shores, he pointed out, however, didn’t provide a number.
Ramesh Kumar Singh, a member of Bondhu Mahal Samiti, a humanitarian company that assists with the cremation bodies, stated the amount of fatalities is actually quite higher in rural areas, and poor folks have been disposing of the bodies in the waterway due to the excessively high costs of conducting the final ceremonies and the scarcity of lumber. The cremation expenses have tripled to as much as 15,000 rupees ($210).
Health authorities this past week recovered 71 bodies that washed ashore on the Ganges Riverbank in the nearby Bihar state.
Authorities conducted post mortems, however, stated they can not verify the cause of death as a result of decomposition.
A dozen remains were additionally discovered recently laid to rest in the sand at 2 places on the shore in the Unnao district, 25 miles southwest of Lucknow, the Uttar Pradesh state capital. District Magistrate Ravindra Kumar mentioned an investigation is underway to pinpoint the cause of deaths.
India’s two big states, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, with nearly 358 million people in total, are among the worst hit in the surge sweeping through the country with devastating death tolls. Hapless villagers are rushing those who are ill to nearby areas for treatment, many of who are dying on the way, victims of the crumbling healthcare system in India.
Following the country reaching record highs for weeks, the amount of new cases has been stabilizing, Dr. V.K. Paul noted, a government health expert.
On Sunday, the Health Ministry reported 311,170 confirmed cases over the last 24 hours, down from 326,098 on Saturday.
It also reported 4,077 more deaths, making the total death count 270,284.
Both figures appear to be a vast undercount, according to experts.
Kyle James Lee – The AEGIS Alliance – This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
