Bihar family forced to carry body for cremation on garbage cart; 3 sacked

Bihar government has told municipal bodies that it is their responsibility to arrange for the last rites of people including those who die of Covid-19

A family in Bihar’s Nalanda district was forced to use a garbage cart to carry their family member to the crematorium who died of coronavirus disease. The heart-wrenching video of their journey to the cremation ground has provoked local authorities to sack three municipal employees for dereliction of duty.

Bihar’s urban development and housing department secretary has directed officials to circulate a phone number that people can dial for help with cremation of family members who die of Covid (Ht Photo/Santosh Kumar)

Officials in state capital Patna also stepped in, issuing fresh instructions to municipal bodies to emphasise that it was their responsibility to give people who lose their lives to Covid-19 a dignified funeral at state expense. Ashok Kishore, secretary of urban development and housing department, also directed officials to circulate a phone number that people can dial for help.

The latest video from Nalanda, one of the widely-circulated clips that reveal how grieving families that lost a member to Covid-19 had a torturous time trying to arrange for their last rites, shows two persons wearing personal protection equipment pulling the cart through Malliksarai village in Islampur block, about 70 km from Nalanda district headquarters, on May 15. Three more people carried the wood on another cart.

Local residents said the dead man, Shankar Choudhary, had died due to coronavirus at home. His wife pleaded with the panchayat officials for a vehicle to take her husband to the crematorium. Her neighbours too shut their doors on her after they learnt that Shankar Choudhary died of Covid-19. Finally, the family used the hand cart; they couldn’t afford anything else.

It was a garbage cart, said Jaglal Choudhary, who described himself as a distant relative of the dead man. He said since there was no one to helo, the family covered him with a piece of cloth and took the body on this cart to the cremation ground for his final rites.

Hilsa sub-divisional officer Radhakant said the administration formed a three-member committee of additional SDO Shashank Raj, executive officer Navin Kumar and circle officer Ajay Kumar to probe the incident. It turned out that the employees gave the family the garbage cart to carry the body. Nalanda district magistrate Yogendra Kumar, has ordered dismissal of the three sweepers for dereliction of duty.

This wasn’t the first such incident in the district.

On Monday, the Nalanda police filed a First Information Report against six people including ward councilor and employees of Biharsharif Municipal Corporation under the Epidemic diseases act on charges that they extorted money for cremation of people who died due to Covid. Municipal commissioner Anshul Agarwal has terminated ward jamadar, sweepers and suspended the sanitary inspector when a fact-finding team found that they had carried the body in a garbage cart to the crematorium in Sohsarai.