A plea was Thursday filed in the Supreme Court seeking constitution of a special investigating team headed by a sitting or retired apex court judge to supervise the probe into the death of several persons whose bodies were recently found floating in river Ganga in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
The petition has sought directions to the Centre, authorities in states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to conduct post-mortem of the bodies which are found floating in river Ganga to ascertain the cause of death.
The plea, filed by advocates Pradeep Kumar Yadav and Vishal Thakre, has claimed that recovery of these decomposed corpses raises issue of serious concern as the river acts as a source of water for many areas and if the bodies were infected by COVID-19, then it might spread in the villages in both the states.
“The act of the states is in-human as the states have failed to provide facilities for decent burial/cremation of dead bodies and have also failed to keep a check that holy river Ganga should not have been polluted by such an inhumane and indecent act either of individual or of states itself,” the plea has alleged.
It claimed that governments of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are running away from the responsibility and instead of finding out as to how these dead bodies were dumped into the river, a “blame game” has begun between them and therefore there is a need of constitution of SIT headed by a sitting or retired judge of the apex court to supervise the probe into the death.
The plea alleged that about 100 bodies were found floating in river Ganga out of which 71 were fished out at Bihar's Buxar district while such bodies were also found in Ghazipur district of Uttar Pradesh.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued notices to the Union Jal Shakti Ministry, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, after receiving complaints about several bodies found floating in the Ganga river in the two states.
"It (NHRC) has issued notices to the chief secretaries of both the states and the secretary, Union Ministry of Jal Shakti, today calling for action taken report within four weeks," its statement noted.
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