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First, it was a man having to carry his wife’s body for 10 km as he could not afford a vehicle and the hospital authorities reportedly refused to make arrangements.
Now, it is hospital workers breaking the bones of a woman, before wrapping it in a sheet and slinging it on a bamboo pole in Balasore district of Odisha.
No ambulance was available to take the body of Salamani Barik, an aged widow, to Balasore, 30 km from Soro town, where she was run over by a train on Wednesday.
There are no hospitals in Soro, only a community health centre, and the body had to be taken to Balasore by train for a post-mortem. When hiring an auto to ferry the body proved too expensive, workers were asked to take it on foot.
The body was taken by the police to the health centre, where it lay for hours on a stretcher and became stiff.
As rigor mortis had set in, the workers broke the body at the hip, wrapped it in an old sheet, tied it to a bamboo pole, and carried it to the railway station from where it was taken to Balasore by train.
The woman’s son Rabindra Barik was quoted as saying, “They carried my mother in a broken condition. I am helpless to do anything. I pray to the authorities for justice.”
Odisha is confronting criticism over a man in Kalahandi, Dana Majhi, being forced to walk with his wife's body, his daughter by his side, for six hours.