Covid-19 in India: Good Samaritan gives dignified farewell to discarded victims
Joydeep Sen Gupta in New Delhi/New Delhi Filed on May 10, 2021
Supplied photo
The selfless act of Jitender Singh, alias Shunty, has struck a big chord with Delhi residents, who are living on the edge due to the pandemic.
Death is alive and the only constant that’s stalking the panic and grief-stricken hapless Indians.
But who will give a dignified farewell to the Covid-19 victims, whose lives are being snuffed out like fireflies, as the Narendra Modi-ruled Indian government appeared to have dropped the ball on contagion management and a bereaved nation mourns for the departed?
NEW DELHI: Jitender Singh ‘Shunty’ has cremated more than 2,000 people – all strangers who needed a dignified farewell as their own feared contracting the dreaded coronavirus or the bodies were unidentified since the outbreak of the deadly pandemic around one year back.
Starting the day as early as 7AM, Singh – who runs a social-service organisation called ‘Shahid Bhagat Singh Sewa Dal’ in the Delhi-NCR area – nowadays ends the day in the parking lot of his house where he sleeps inside an ambulance that is used by his organisation during the day.
“I don’t want the virus to spread to my family members, though some have already been infected,” Singh – whose team wears PPE suits and uses safety kits and sanitisers tells TOI as he speaks about how the scale of corona deaths has shattered him.