While Covid-19 has taken the world in its grips, many instances of inhumanity have emerged during the pandemic. Now, from Belagavi, a report has emerged of a woman pushing her husband's dead body on a cart for his last rites as her family turned her away due to the fear of the deadly virus.
The stigma against COVID-19 has seeped to the grassroots, as people fear dead body handling. The video of this lady has gone viral on social media.
Covid victims getting unceremonious sendoffs
One of the aspects of the pandemic that hasn't been addressed adequately by anybody, the media or politics is the stigma towards COVID-19. Perhaps rightly so, many are afraid of coming in contact with the virus, even accidentally. However, the ones who're the victims are those who perhaps aren't affected by the virus.
In the Athani taluk, the video of a woman pushing her husband's body on a cart with two others on the street touched hearts online. Even as the government has drawn up serious guidelines about last rites, the dead are getting unceremonious sendoffs across the country whether due to COVID-19 or not.
Relatives and family who before the pandemic would always come together to help in the last rites, in this case, were afraid of getting infected by COVID-19. The lady was recorded on camera while going tot he crematorium. The body was of a 55-year-old Sadashiv Hiratti, a cobbler in Belagavi, Karnataka. The man passed away due to a heart attack, suffering from heart ailments it was reported.
Neighbours didn't respond to their knocks or calls, ANI reported that the man tested negative for COVID-19. Such stories are not new during the pandemic. However, these stories don't seem to be growing far and few in between, instead they are becoming the norm. Netizens found the incident shocking taking to the net to mull the incident.
