>>13675414
Connected? Orange?
Who knows where the bodies are buried…
Hundreds of bodies found buried along Indian riverbanks
PRAYAGRAJ, India (AP) — Police are reaching out to villagers in northern India to investigate the recovery of bodies buried in shallow sand graves or washed up on the Ganges River banks, prompting speculation on social media that they're the remains of COVID-19 victims.
In jeeps and boats, police used portable loudspeakers with microphones asking people not to dispose of bodies in rivers. "We are here to help you perform the last rites,” police said.
On Friday, rains exposed the cloth coverings of bodies buried in shallow sand graves on a wide, flat riverbank in Prayagraj, a city in Uttar Pradesh state. While officials say the riverside burials have taken place for decades, the sheer numbers in the shadow of the pandemic are focusing more attention on the practice.
Navneet Sehgal, a state government spokesman, on Sunday denied local media reports that more than 1,000 corpses of COVID-19 victims had been recovered from rivers in the past two weeks.“I bet these bodies have nothing to do with COVID-19,”he said.
He said some villagers did not cremate their dead as is customary, due to a Hindu tradition during some periods of religious significance, and instead disposed of them in rivers or by digging graves on riverbanks.
Ramesh Kumar Singh, a member of Bondhu Mahal Samiti, a philanthropic organization that helps cremate bodies, said the number of deaths is very high in rural areas, and poor people have been disposing of bodies in the river because of the exorbitant cost of performing the last rites and a shortage of wood. The cost of cremation has tripled up to 15,000 rupees ($210).
On Saturday, an Associated Press photojournalist estimated there were at least 300 shallow riverside graves on a sand bar near near Prayagraj. Each grave was covered by anorange, yellow or reddishcloth and appeared laid out in the same direction. Several policemen were at the scene, but allowed a family who arrived in a small truck to bury a 75-year-old woman at the site.
more
https://www.yahoo.com/news/indian-police-bodies-riverbank-amid-050914298.html