The state government official confirmed that bodies of patients who died from COVID-19 have been found dumped in some Indian rivers.
According to a Reuters report, the letter obtained from a state official is the first official acknowledgment of the alarming practice.
The bodies may have been dumped due to poverty and fear of the disease in villages from the virus which has spread to remote areas.
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Dozens of bodies were found floating down the Ganges River, which Hindus consider holy, last week.
The images of scores of the bloated bodies washed to the rivers have shocked the South Asian nation battling the worst surge in infections.
Although media have linked the floating bodies recovered in the rivers to the pandemic, the northern state of Uttar Pradesh opted not to disclose the cause of the deaths.
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“The administration has information that bodies of those who have succumbed to COVID-19 or any other disease are being thrown into rivers instead of being disposed of as per proper rituals,” senior state official Manoj Kumar Singh wrote to district heads.
Moreover, Singh said the bodies are already in the state of decomposition, so it would be hard to determine if it’s positive for coronavirus.
Singh said a lack of funds for materials such as firewood for cremation, religious beliefs in some communities, and families abandoning victims for fear of the disease were among the likely reasons for the surge in dumping. (RA)
