Lucknow: “
Humne (kabhie) itni dead bodies to dekhi hi nahin hai… wo ghat par platform bane hain, woh khali pade rahte the, (par) aaj pair rakhne ki jagah nahin hai, charon aur lashein hi lashein.”
Amar Singh, 29, who works at Lucknow’s Mukti Dham cremation ground, had never seen “so many dead bodies”. The raised platform on the premises for funerals that would earlier see few pyres has no place for any one to even stand now, he said, adding: “It’s dead bodies all over.”
On Thursday, when this reporter reached Mukti Dham around 6 pm, four young men were stacking up logs of wood on one side of the ghat to prepare a row of funeral pyres for the next round of Covid cremations. They were not wearing proper PPE suits. Over 30 pyres were already burning, and more bodies were waiting to be consigned to flames.