NEW DELHI, May 10: People of Chausa in Bihar’s Buxar district bordering with Uttar Pradesh on the bank of the river Ganges on Monday woke up to a horrible sight, about 40 to 45 bloated, decomposed bodies of suspected Covid victims floating on the river water and closing in on the bank.
“We were alerted by the local chowkidar that many bodies have been spotted floating from upstream. We have so far recovered 15 of these. None of the deceased happens to be a resident of the district,” Chausa Block Development BDO Ashok Kumar said.
Most of the bodies gave the impression that these were floating in the water for five to seven days, official sources said.
The visuals expose the scale of India’s Covid crisis. The people believed that the bodies were those of Covid patients and were thrown into the river because their relatives did not have fund or find the space to cremate or bury them.
People woke up early this morning to the grotesque sight and raised an alarm. The local administration believes the bodies floated down from Uttar Pradesh. “Some 40-45 bodies were seen floating,” said Ashok Kumar standing at the site of the horror, Mahadeva Ghat in Chausa. He, however, denied there could be over 100 bodies. “The figure is too much on the higher side,” he said.
“They are bloated and have been in the water for at least five to seven days. We are disposing of the bodies. We need to investigate where they are from, which town in UP – Bahraich or Varanasi or Allahabad,” said another official, KK Upadhyay.
“The bodies are not from here as we don’t have a tradition of disposing of bodies in the river,” Upadhyay said. The bodies have led to a blame-game between UP and Bihar.
Kumar said “many Uttar Pradesh districts are situated right across the river and the bodies may have been dumped in the Ganges for reasons not known to us. We cannot confirm whether the deceased were indeed Covid-19 positive. The bodies have started decomposing. But we are taking all precautions while ensuring that these are disposed of in a decent manner.”
There is panic in the town and others nearby about infection from the bodies and from the river water. Dogs were seen wading near the bodies, an image that played into fears of an explosion in Covid cases.
“People are terrified of getting Covid. We have to bury the bodies,” said Narendra Kumar, a villager.
The Congress alleges these bodies are proof of the untold hidden Covid deaths.
(Manas Dasgupta)
