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‘Dead body could infect us, wood is expensive’ -- tragic stories of Covid victims in Ganga -Sajid Ali

-ThePrint.in

Some residents of Gahmar in Ghazipur say they’ve had to resort to immersing bodies in the Ganga due to high number of deaths, rising cost of cremations.

Gahmar, Ghazipur: Five dogs are lying asleep next to three withered corpses on the bank of the river Ganga. At the thrum of our approaching motorboat, one dog pops its head up to look, and then promptly goes back to sleep.

Amit Sah, who is accompanying ThePrint on the eight-kilometre boat ride from Gahmar village in Ghazipur district of Uttar Pradesh to the border with Chausa in Buxar district of Bihar, remarks that the dogs are probably too full from eating human remains over the last five days, because dozens of bodies that have been fished out of the holiest river in Hindu tradition are now at the mercy of scavenging fauna.

On Thursday’s four-hour long journey, ThePrint spots, at rough count, more than 100 corpses and skeletal remains, though the number cannot be accurately verified. Earlier this week, 71 bodies had washed ashore at Mahadev Ghat in Chausa, suspected to be mostly of Covid-19 patients, and more are floating down the river now.

As if to prove Amit’s point, metres away from the dogs, some crows and an eagle fight over bones from a body stuck in a bush beside the river.

“Who will take responsibility for this? There are bodies floating all over… What happens to Namami Gange project?” asks Amit, a resident of Gahmar who, along with his friends, has been helping the poor with food and other needs.

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