NEW DELHI, May 11: Visuals viral in the social media showing bodies being thrown into the river Ganges over a bridge near the Bihar – Uttar Pradesh border from ambulances have shocked the people and scare among the residents in the downstream.
As more bodies in the river emerged on Tuesday, corpses were seen floating under the bridge. Officials in Bihar said the number of corpses that had washed up on the Ganga banks at Buxar yesterday was a staggering 71.
A Bihar BJP MP, Janardhan Singh Sigriwal, alleged that bodies of Covid victims were being dumped into the river from ambulances driving on the bridge known as Jaiprabha Setu located in Bihar’s Saran near the border with Ballia in UP.
“Bodies are thrown over by ambulance drivers from both UP and Bihar,” local people said.
On Monday, bloated and decomposing bodies, said to be of Covid victims, were seen floating in the river before they hit the banks at Buxar’s Chausa village, near a cremation site.
“All night the bodies were taken out and post mortems were carried out. Because they were decomposed, the cause of death has not been established yet,” said a press statement from the Buxar administration.
“We have saved DNA traces to help identify the corpses,” it said.
Officials emphatically dismissed reports that the bodies were thrown into the river by local people because of the exorbitant prices charged for firewood to cremate them.
“There is enough firewood at the cremation grounds and six to eight bodies have been burnt each day on average,” the press statement said.
“We have told all officials to be alert about such incidents in future and have also asked them to make locals aware about not throwing bodies into the river.”
The floating corpses in the Ganga have fueled a dispute between Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Bihar Minister Sanjay Kumar Jha said Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was “pained” after the incident.
“The bodies have floated into Bihar from UP. Upon postmortem, our doctors have confirmed that these are four-five days old bodies. Nitish Kumar is pained at both the tragedy as well as harm to the river Ganges. A net has been placed in Ganges in Ranighat, bordering UP and Bihar,” the Minister said.
“We’ve advised the UP administration to be vigilant; our district administration is keeping vigil too. We advise all to respect the dead and Ma Ganga,” he added.
(Manas Dasgupta)
