The Chennai police on Monday arrested 20 persons for attacking a group attempting to bury a 55-year-old man who had died due to Covid-19 in a city cemetery on Sunday night. A senior police official told Hindustan Times that the arrests were made for pelting stones and obstructing public servants in discharging their duties.
The ambulance carrying the body was smashed, the health inspectors, ambulance driver and attendant wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) were injured, and the driver of the JCB machine that dug the grave was also injured in the attack.
Dr Simon Hercules, a neurosurgeon, died of the coronavirus after he was admitted in Apollo, a private hospital, earlier this month. Late Sunday night, a group comprising Hercules’ family members and colleagues including Dr K Pradeep Kumar took his body to Velankadu cemetery for burial. A group of locals pelted stones at them and damaged the vehicles, as it did not want the burial to take place out of fear of the spread of the virus.
“When we reached around 8.30-9pm, the JCB machine had started digging the grave which was supposed to be 12 feet deep as per protocol. The people in the neighbourhood started gathering. They didn’t ask us anything, but kept shouting at us, telling us to go back and take the body and leave. ‘How dare you come here?’ they shouted,” Kumar said. They used abusive language and started pelting stones Kumar added.
“We were initially supposed to go to the burial ground in Shenoy Nagar but we were told that there was a huge gathering of 200-300 people who had shown up to protest [against the burial]. Some of us even drove there to check and saw a large gathering,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}“We were initially supposed to go to the burial ground in Shenoy Nagar but we were told that there was a huge gathering of 200-300 people who had shown up to protest [against the burial]. Some of us even drove there to check and saw a large gathering,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}According to reports, it is likely that local civic workers had informed residents at both burial sites due to which they had gathered in large numbers. “First of all, I was shocked. I don’t blame the people. They did it out of ignorance. They fear for their lives, everybody fears coronavirus. It is not just them, even we do, we doctors know what Covid-19 can do to us but still we have to work with it. The lack of awareness is the only reason this has happened,” Kumar told HT.
According to the Centre’s guidelines, burial and cremation of bodies of persons who died of Covid-19 can be safely carried out after following precautions like maintaining distance from the body, wearing masks and gloves, and disinfecting the body bag.
After the attack, the funeral was abandoned and the grave wasn’t dug completely. Kumar returned later at 11pm, with two ward boys and a police official, to complete the burial. All of them, except the policeman, were clad in PPE. This time, with no machine to complete digging the grave, Kumar used a shovel. “After watching us struggle for 15-20 minutes, a police official came forward to help us. He was not wearing any protective clothing. We all used our hands to scrape the clay and sand to close the grave,” Kumar said.
A little after midnight, the burial was finally over.
On Monday, Tamil Nadu health minister C. Vijayabaskar confirmed the arrests at the daily press briefing and said, “One thing is clear, this (protests) was wrong and should be condemned. It is very clear this shouldn’t have happened. If there is a body, as per protocol, it is packed, rolled, sanitized, zipped up and people wearing PPEs will take it for burial. In whatever circumstances, in case of a burial, because of the dust that might come out, or the air around, the virus will not spread. I am confirming this, and I urge the public to not spread rumours.”
Kumar, who had worked with Hercules for six years, called him a “kind-hearted man”. “He took care of all his patients, you would always find him in the hospital, either to see his patients or doing administrative work. He was a solid pillar for all of us,” he said.
“Every soldier knows they could one day die fighting, similarly every doctor knows, there are lots of communicable diseases around us, and it could catch up with us one day.”
Hercules was the director of New Hope private hospital. His daughter, also a patient of Covid-19, is admitted to Apollo hospital. Her condition is reported to be stable.