Hundreds of bodies were found on the banks of Indian rivers buried due to the exorbitant cost of cremations. It is estimated to have risen at least threefold.
Hundreds of bodies found buried on the banks of Indian rivers
Police target villagers in northern India to examine the recovery of the removal of corpses in flat sand pits or rinsed on the banks of the Ganges River, forcing speculation on social networks that they are the remains of Covid–19 victims.
In jeeps and boats, police used portable loudspeakers with microphones to ask people not to dispose of the bodies in the rivers.
Navnet Sehgal, a government spokesman, told local media on Sunday that more than 1,000 bodies of Covid-19 victims have been recovered from rivers in the past two weeks.
“I bet these bodies have nothing to do with Covid–19, ” he said.
He said some villagers did not cremate their dead, as usual, due to a Hindu tradition during some religiously important periods and disposed of them in the rivers
Sehgal state authorities have “a small number” found of the bodies on the river banks, but did not say a figure.
Ramesh Kumar Singh, a member of Bondhu Mahal Samiti, a philanthropic organization that helps cremate the corpses, said the number of deaths in rural areas is very high, and the poor have the bodies in the river because of the exorbitant cost of cremation.
Cremation costs have tripled to 15,000 rupees ($210).
Health authorities last week recovered 71 bodies that washed up on the banks of the Ganges River in neighboring Bihar state.
Authorities conducted autopsies but said they could not confirm the cause of death due to decomposition.
