COVID shocks: When they were robbed of dignity even in death [Gut-wrenching tales]

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For the past one-month social media has been pulled over and given a ring side view of India's unfolding Covid-19 crises.

With Twitter still burning with chilling videos of endless funeral pyres in Lucknow, volunteers digging graves in advance because they know many are coming soon and Ghaziabad administration making arrangements for final rites on pavements, there is no scope even for burying head in the sand.

Whether it's a collective administrative fallout or gross human error, many of those dead were just robbed of a dignified send-off. As humankind struggles to cope with reeling losses, which are rising by the minute, here's facing death and destruction. Lest we forget, move on and unlearn the lessons.

• Bodies of victims getting mixed up

No state has been spared the overwhelming number of deaths. Earlier this month, the bodies of two women who died due to Covid in Bhopal got mixed up. By the time, the tragic error came to light, the Muslim woman had already been cremated as per Hindu rituals.

The bodies got swapped at Hamidia Hospital while being handed over to their families. The hospital authorities claim that the family members of one of the women didn't check the name tag properly while identifying and claiming the body.

• Bodies not allowed to take back home

The bodies not being given the customary final baths and send-offs do not come as a shocker to many anymore. In an interview with The Print, a resident Makena Powella opened up about waiting for five hours at Ellisbridge crematorium in Ahmedabad to be able to conduct her uncle's funeral.

As if losing her loved one to Covid and not being allowed to take the dead body home for final prayers was not enough, the family had to allegedly accept the dead being written off as 'death due to illness' and not Covid.

• When the kin refused to touch the bodies

It's not always the state but sometimes families too need to walk back home with guilt, blame themselves and feel guilty rest of the period. In another incident, it was really heartbreaking. Bhopal's Muslim men Danish Siddiqui and Saddam Qurashi have been selflessly performing the last rites of Hindu Covid victims as per the Hindu rituals when the kin refused to touch them for fear of getting infected. The duo has cremated more than 60 bodies so far. 

•  Video that should be enough to shake the very soul of the city

There are official numbers quoted of those dead and the real deaths and casualties whose realistic estimate was calculated on the basis of how many lines of wood pyres are lighted up every hour. In some states, it has become impossible to manually dig graves for the dead. Last week, in Gujarat reportedly JCBs were being used to dig graves of those dying due to Covid.

• Images that speaks a thousand unsaid words

In what can be called nothing less than heart-wrenching, a viral video showed a body from Sir Sunder Lal hospital in BHU, Varanasi that was being ferried to a cremation ghat in an auto-rickshaw. The deaths have also resulted in a severe shortage of ambulances to carry the dead.

In Chhattisgarh, PPE-clad health care workers can be seen lifting and shifting the dead bodies of Covid victims to the back of the MC's garbage trucks, to ferry them to cremation grounds.