No money for last rites, man leaves dad's body on hill in Andhra Pradesh

TIRUPATI: A 24-year-old man has been booked by CK Dinne police in YSR district for abandoning his father's body at an isolated spot as he couldn't afford to perform his final rites. The man, identified as Bomma Rajasekhar Reddy from Chinna Singanapalli village in Duvvur mandal, works as a cleaner in a private school bus.
The issue came to light when police officials found the decomposed body of an elderly person on the Guvvalacheruvu ghat road along the Kadapa-Rayachoti (NH-40) highway on April 29. SI B Arun Reddy said a truck accident took place on the Guvvalacheruvu ghat road last Saturday. The driver and cleaner of the truck, who went down the hillock to attend nature's call, were the first to spot the body when they tried to trace the foul smell.
Police officials then rushed to the spot. "The body was covered with a hospital bedsheet and was in a highly decomposed state. Since we couldn't move it to the hospital, we completed the inquest and postmortem formalities at the spot itself," said Arun Reddy.
Though we initially suspected it to be a case of murder, the postmortem report confirmed that the man died a natural death, the SI added. Police identified the deceased as 62-year-old Bomma Chinna Pulla Reddy with the help of the bedsheet. Enquiries at the hospital revealed he had been diagnosed with TB and got himself admitted to Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences in Kadapa on his own.
His son Rajasekhar, after coming to know about his father's condition, came to the hospital on February 23 and got him discharged as he was in the final moments of his life. Chinna Pulla Reddy died in the auto the duo had hired to go home.
Rajasekhar pleaded with the auto driver to drop him at an isolated location near Guvvalacheruvu, claiming that he was penniless and not in a position to perform the final rites. The auto driver agreed and dropped him at an isolated spot on the Guvvalacheruvu ghat road on Kadapa-Rayachoti highway.
Rajasekhar took his father's body down the hillock to an isolated spot and abandoned it there. He went back to his village and told his family and relatives that his father passed away and that his final rites were performed at the hospital.
But Rajasekhar surrendered before the cops when he came to know that an investigation had been launched. Police have booked Rajasekhar under Section 5 of Senior Citizens Act, which lays down provisions for children and relatives of senior citizens to maintain and protect them, and Section 290 of IPC (committing public nuisance). He has been taken into custody.