After a video of a tribal man carrying body of his dead wife sent shock wave across the nation, another image from the state showing a dead woman wrapped in a sheet and slung on a bamboo has gone viral on social media platforms.
According to a report in The Indian Express, some hospital workers stood over the dead body of the woman, broke her bones, before wrapping it in a sheet and slinging it on a bamboo pole in Balasore district.
Salamani Behera, the 80 year old woman died after she was run over by a goods train near Soro railway station, in Balasore district early Wednesday.
Her body was taken to the Soro Community Health Centre (CHC). Railway Police (GRP) was informed; its personnel reached the hospital only in the evening, almost 12 hours later. The body had to be taken to the Balasore district hospital for post-mortem, but no ambulance was available, the IE report says.
Due to the delay, joint and muscles of the dead body stiffened, making it difficult for the workers to tie the body. So they broke the body at the hip, wrapped it in an old sheet, tied it to a bamboo pole, and carried it to the railway station, which is about 2 km away.
The body was then taken to Balasore by train.
“They could have been a little more human. I initially thought of filing a case against the policemen. But who would act on our complaint,” Behera's son Rabindra Barik told The Indian Express.
On Wednesday, Dana Manhi, a tribal man from Kalahandi district carried the body of his wife on his shoulders as the hospital authorities did not provide a mortuary van or an ambulance.
Majhi has said despite all efforts, he failed to get any help from hospital authorities and had no other alternative than to wrap the body in a cloth and start walking to his village Melghara in Rampur block, about 60 km from Bhawanipatna.
Implementation of the new scheme, under which bodies are to be transported from government hospitals and government-affiliated hospitals to the residences of the deceased, was decided in February this year. However, it was launched by Mr. Patnaik at Mahanga in Cuttack district only on Thursday.
