Himachal Pradesh: Son carries COVID-19 positive mother’s body on shoulders

New Delhi, May 15: A man carried the body of his mother, who died of Covid-19, on his shoulders from their home to a crematorium in a village in Himachal Pradesh's Kangra district allegedly after failing to get help from the authorities.

However, Kangra Deputy Commissioner Rakesh Prajapati told PTI that neither him nor the sub-divisional magistrate were informed about the incident.

Narrating the episode to reporters on Friday, the man said his mother, who had tested Covid positive, could not be hospitalised due to unavailability of bed and oxygen so he brought her back home in Bangwar village where she died on Thursday around 4:30 am.

The man said that he informed village panchayat head Sooram Singh about the incident but no one from the village helped him carry the body to the kilometre-away crematorium.

He further alleged that the panchayat chief also could not arrange any vehicle so he decided to take his mother's body on shoulders.

Meanwhile, Singh told reporters that he and an Asha worker were arranging PPE kits for carrying the body to the crematorium but the man refused their help.

Singh said he talked to two tractor-trolley owners but they refused to carry the body in their vehicles, fearing the spread of Covid infection.

The village panchayat chief also said that since he was sick himself, he could not visit the man's house but told villagers about the incident who went to the crematorium to arrange woods for the pyre.

Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioner Prajapati said the sub-divisional magistrate visited Bangwar village on Friday and came to know that a group of villagers had gone to the crematorium site for preparing the pyre.

The district administration has already been cremating the bodies of Covid-19 patients who die in hospitals, he said, adding that now the administration would also cremate patients who die at home.

Kangra Congress MLA Pawan Kumar Kajal told PTI that he came to know about the entire episode on Friday morning and if he would have known earlier, he would have helped.