New Delhi: Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on Tuesday said that the Center has taken serious note of the issue of dumping of dead bodies in River Ganga. He added that the Centre through the NMCG and district authorities will ensure that all unidentified bodies are disposed of as per the protocol.

“We have taken serious note of the issue of dumping dead bodies in River Ganga and instituted measures for the prohibition of the same. The Centre through the NMCG and district authorities will ensure all unidentified bodies are disposed as per the protocol,” the minister said in a tweet.

Notably, a total of 71 bodies have been fished out from the Ganges in Buxar district so far, where these were found floating in the river, triggering suspicion that the abandoned corpses could be those of COVID-19 patients, the Bihar government said on Tuesday.

State Water Resources Minister Sanjay Kumar Jha, a key aide of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, came out with a series of tweets, asserting that the bodies had flown downstream from neighbouring Uttar Pradesh.

A large number of bloated corpses were seen floating in the river bed in Chausa block of Buxar district on Monday, triggering shock waves across the country. Though some news channels claimed these were of COVID-19 patients who might have been abandoned by resource-starved family members or dumped by callous officials, the local administration had strongly denied the same, asserting that none of the deceased was a local resident, and the bodies had flown downstream from adjoining UP districts.