Shocking video emerges of Covid patient's body dumped off bridge
A disturbing video has emerged of two men tossing the body of a Covid-19 patient off a bridge in India.
One of the men is seen dressed in full PPE and uses the help of another to dump the body off the bridge over Rapti River in Uttar Pradesh.
The Covid patient, identified as Premnath, died three days after being admitted to hospital and testing positive to the virus on May 25.
His body was then handed back to his relatives for a final cremation, however Balrampur's chief medical officer said two members of the family dumped the body instead.
Video showing the chilling moment the men throwing the body from the bridge surfaced on social media, prompting police to arrest the two family members involved.
It comes just weeks after bodies were reportedly washing up in rivers in India amid the raging coronavirus surge in the country,
Officials told the BBC earlier this month about 40 bodies washed up on the banks of the Ganges in Buxar district in the country’s north.
Local official Ashok Kumar said many believed the bodies washed up from nearby Uttar Pradesh.
It was also believed the bodies, some of which were found partially burned, may have been washed down the river from riverside cremation ceremonies for coronavirus victims, NDTV reported.
U.P: BODY OF A COVID PATIENT THROWN IN RIVER
2 men are seen tinkering the body placed on the edge of a bridge over river Rapti. Patient was admitted to hospital on May 25 & died three days later. The body was handed over to his relatives who dumped it in the river. @AlokReporter pic.twitter.com/3e0MfqT8yj— Mirror Now (@MirrorNow) May 30, 2021
There were further suggestions some families were either running out of money or wood, or both, and had been left with little choice but to place their dead loved ones into the river.
Locals have complained dumping the bodies in the river “is the height of insensitivity”.
Resident Kameshwar Pandey told AFP the find was “really shocking”.
Coronavirus continues to wreak havoc in the nation, where there have been more than 27 million cases.
More than 325,000 people have lost their lives to Covid in India, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
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