All night the bodies were taken out and post mortems were carried out, officials said. (File)
Patna:
As more bodies in the river surfaced on Tuesday in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, corpses were seen floating under a bridge near the border between the two states in an escalating human tragedy amid Covid. Officials in Bihar said the number of corpses that had washed up on the Ganga banks at Buxar on Monday was a staggering 71 and they blame Uttar Pradesh for them.
Visuals of bodies allegedly thrown over a bridge by ambulance drivers were widely shared on social media, where posts expressed shock at the insensitivity towards Covid victims and their families.
2:33 PM
Engorged, decaying corpses were found on the banks of the Ganga in Bihar’s Buxar on Monday morning, revealing a macabre sight of the COVID horror in the country. The spine-chilling video in which several bloated bodies are seen on the bank of the Ganga has surfaced on Monday, sparking a scare among the locals. Nearly 30-40 dead bodies can be seen in the Ganga with stray dogs roaming around them.
While locals claimed such sightings had become common since officials began dumping bodies into the river after running out of firewood at the crematoriums, authorities said that the bodies had flowed into the state from upstream Uttar Pradesh, where similar sightings had been reported at a border village in Ghazipur district.
National Mission for Clean Ganga directs to stop dumping of dead bodies in river ANI | Updated: May 11, 2021 23:58 IST
New Delhi [India], May 11 (ANI): National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) on Tuesday directed for the immediately stop dumping of dead bodies, partially burnt bodies/ unclaimed or unidentified corpses in the river Ganga and its tributaries as reports regarding bloated and decomposed bodies, suspected to be of Covid victims, been found floating along the bank of rivers causing shock and fear among the public .
In the notice issued by Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, Director General, NMCG, the body said that share standard practice(s)/are being followed for disposal of unidentified dead bodies/unclaimed corpses found in river Ganga or its tributaries, and added that appropriate funding assistance, if required, will be considered for approval by NMCG after receipt of such requests.
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.”
71 bodies retrieved from Ganga in Buxar, Bihar asks UP government to be vigilant ANI | Updated: May 12, 2021 00:59 IST
Patna (Bihar) [India], May 12 (ANI): Bihar Minister Sanjay Kumar Jha has said 71 bodies have been taken out from the Ganges in Buxar district and their last rites performed and a net has been placed in the Ganga in Ranighat, bordering UP and Bihar, to stop any similar incident from happening again. The bodies were found floating in the river and there are apprehensions that the corpses could of COVID-19 patients.
Jha, who is Miniter of Water Resources and Information and Public Relations, said in a series of tweets that Bihar Government has advised UP administration to be vigilant in the matter.