Images of bodies floating down the Ganges river, which Hindus regard as the holiest river, have stunned a country reeling from the world’s worst epidemic wave.
Although the media has attributed the recent uptick in such bodies to the pandemic, the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, which has a population of 240 million people, has yet to officially announce the cause of the deaths.
“The administration has knowledge that bodies of those who have succumbed to Covid-19 or some other disease are being dumped into rivers instead of being disposed of according to proper rituals,” a senior state official, Manoj Kumar Singh, said in a letter to district heads on May 14 that was checked by media agency .
Singh acknowledged the letter to Reuters, but added that autopsies on four to five bodies in the state’s Ghazipur district had shown no virus infection.
“The corpses are decomposed, so I’m not sure it can be figured out about corona positive in this state,” he said in a text message.
On Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged officials to increase rural healthcare services and surveillance as the virus spreads rapidly in those areas after ravaging cities.
Uttar Pradesh, which has more inhabitants than Brazil or Pakistan, has been severely impacted by India’s dramatic Covid-19 second wave. According to health researchers, many instances go unnoticed in the state’s villages, which are home to the vast majority of its people.
According to Singh’s memo, among the possible causes of the increase in dumping are a scarcity of funds for supplies such as firewood for cremation, religious practices in certain countries, and families leaving victims due to fear of the disease.
He instructed village officials to ensure that no corpses were dumped in to the water and announced that the state government would pay poor families 5,000 rupees ($68) each to cremate or bury the dead.
To put a halt to the activity, the state has even ordered police to patrol waterways.
The increase in deaths has caused backlogs at crematoriums around the country and increased the expense of last rites.
On Saturday, Uttar Pradesh spokesman Navneet Sehgal dismissed media claims that up to 2,000 bodies of potential virus patients had been taken from rivers in the state and neighboring Bihar in recent days.
“Every now and then, we recover 10 to 20 bodies,” Sehgal told media, adding that some riverside villagers did not cremate their dead due to Hindu rituals during religiously significant times.
