Amid India s COVID-19 surge, dozens of dead bodies found floating in Ganges River cbsnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from cbsnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Now, blame games begin over floating bodies
Patna
District magistrates of Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh and Buxar in Bihar are blaming each other over the recovery of 84 bodies from the Ganga banks. Mangla Prasad Singh, DM of Ghazipur, on Tuesday claimed only 13 bodies were found on the banks of Ganga in his district and they had come from Bihar.
However, Buxar DM Aman Sameer contradicted his Ghazipur counterpart and claimed most of the 71 bodies found floating at Mahadev Ghat in Chausa block were from UP.
DM of Buxar and SP, Neeraj Kumar Singh, visited Chausa late Monday night and retrieved 71 bodies. All bodies found at Mahadeva Ghat were buried on the banks of the Ganga by using JCB machines. The DM said medical staff have collected DNA samples and swabs of the bodies for identification. He admitted majority of them must be of Corona victims.
File photo
PATNA/BUXAR: A day after scores of decomposed and half-burnt corpses floating down the Ganga washed ashore at Chausa village in Buxar, officials of Bihar and neighbouring UP engaged in a blame game over which state was responsible for dumping bodies in the river.
The Bihar government said 71 bodies had been retrieved and cremated after autopsies that failed to confirm if the deaths were caused by Covid-19. Union jal shakti minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat termed the dumping of bodies in the Ganga “unfortunate” and a matter that must be investigated.
Tagging Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath in a tweet on Tuesday, he said, “The Modi government is committed to the cleanliness of ‘mother’ Ganga. This incident is unexpected. The states concerned should take immediate cognisance.”
Health officials working through the night Monday retrieved 71 bodies, officials in Bihar state said.
Images on social media of the bodies floating in the river prompted outrage and speculation that they died from COVID-19. Authorities performed post mortems on Tuesday but said they could not confirm the cause of death due to the decomposition of the bodies.
More corpses were found floating in the river on Tuesday, washing up in Ghazipur district in neighboring Uttar Pradesh state. Police and villagers were at the site, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Monday’s incident.
“We are trying to find out where did these dead bodies come from? How did they get here?” said Mangla Prasad Singh, a local official.
Indignación en la India tras hallazgo de decenas de cadáveres en un río metro.pr - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from metro.pr Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.