India Covid Crisis: Bodies overwhelm the funeral industry anjana@khaleejtimes.com Filed on May 2, 2021
A relative wearing a personal protective equipment suit looks on as an excavator covers the grave of his loved one, who died from Covid. Photo: AFP
Shortage of men and resources driving up cost of funerals.
In one of India’s national capital Delhi’s oldest graveyards, Imam Waseem stands exhausted in his personal protective equipment (PPE) overall, as he finishes funeral prayers for a Covid-19 victim. He has lost count of the dead he helped bury in the teeming and contagion-ravaged metropolis last week.
“I’ve not seen so many deaths ever in my life. Sometimes, there are 20 in a day. Sometimes, 30. I feel my heart is numbed,” Waseem, a cleric at the ITO graveyard, told