Madhya Pradesh is undercounting Covid deaths?
Crematoriums and graveyards in the capital Bhopal alone are reporting more deaths than the government is for the entire state.
Pyres burn at Subhash Nagar Vishram Ghat.
India is grappling with a brutal new wave of the coronavirus pandemic. It counted 2,75,196 new infections on April 18 and 1,620 deaths. Alarming as these numbers are, they are widely suspected to be undercounted.
Indeed, news reports in the past week have revealed that several states are reporting fewer deaths than are taking place. One such state is Madhya Pradesh.
To check if the state is really undercounting Covid deaths, we visited the two main cremation grounds in the capital Bhopal and the largest graveyard this past week. The city has at least 10 cremation grounds and 12 large and small graveyards.