Mukesh Ranjan

Tribune News service

New Delhi, May 30

Bodies of Covid-19 victims continue to be abandoned in Uttar Pradesh. Two men, one of them in a PPE kit, were caught on camera purportedly throwing a body into the Rapti river from a bridge in Balrampur district. The video, which went viral on the social media, was shot by a passerby amid heavy rain on May 28. The district police filed an FIR and subsequently arrested both persons seen in the video.

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Talking to The Tribune, Additional Superintendent of Police Arvind Mishra said the family members of the deceased, identified as Prem Nath Mishra, a resident of Siddharthnagar, had been booked under the Disaster Management Act and the Epidemic Diseases Act.

Chief Medical Officer Dr VB Singh said Mishra was diagnosed with Covid-19 and admitted to the district hospital on May 25. He succumbed to the infection on May 28. “The body was handed over to the family members the same day as per the protocol,” he added.

Police sources identified the man in the PPE kit as a nephew of the deceased and the other person in the video as the driver of the vehicle carrying the corpse. Earlier this month, several bodies were found floating in the Ganga and Yamuna rivers following which the UP instructed the SDRF and PAC to step up patrolling along the rivers.