No Cremation, No Help, Man Carries Covid Positive Wife's Body On A Cycle

While Covid has not made its presence felt in these areas, the locals know enough to fear it.

Two heart-wrenching photos from Uttar Pradesh has brought home the situation of Covid-hit families in rural Uttar Pradesh. One of the photos being circulated in social media shows an elderly, bearded man carrying the body of a woman on a bicycle. Another shows the bicycle fallen, the body sprawled across it. The local police, who finally helped the man, revealed a harsh story of social boycott and fear. The man in the photo, the police said, is 70 year-old Tilakdhari, a resident of Amberpur village in Jaunpur -- 275 km from state capital Lucknow. His wife had died of Covid at a government hospital. The police said the hospital had sent her body back in an ambulance, but the villagers declared that they would not allow her cremation in the local cremation ground. This, they said, would ensure the spread of infection in the village.