Shocking! Family members dump Covid patient's body in river, probe launched

A shocking video of a body of Covid patient being thrown in a river has surfaced from Uttar Pradesh. The incident was shot by a couple of people who were driving by the spot in Balrampur district  few days ago. In the video, two men, one of them in a PPE suit, are seen lifting a body on the bridge over river Rapti. The man in the PPE suit can be seen tinkering with the body -- probably trying to get it out of the body bag. The Chief Medical Officer of Balrampur later confirmed that the body was indeed of a Covid patient, and the relatives were trying to dump it in the river. Two of the relatives have been arrested. A case has been filed against the relatives the body has been handed back to them.

Chief medical officer (CMO) Dr Vijay Bahadur Singh said after the video went viral they found in their probe that Premnath Mishra, a resident of Sidharthnagar, was admitted to a hospital on May 25 and died on May 28. “The body was handed over to his relatives following all Covid protocols and his relatives took it at the crematorium. Prima facie, according to the video, it seems that the body was thrown into the river by his relatives,” Singh said in a video tweeted by Balrampur Police. Singh added that a case has been registered and action is being taken against the people seen in the video, which has been shared widely on social media. In the now viral video, shot by passers by in a car, shows two men with the body in pouring rain. The men, one of them in a PPE suit, are seen lifting the body on to the edge of the bridge over River Rapti in the 45-second clip. The incident came to light after videos of ghat workers removing saffron-yellow shrouds and bamboo stick markings from shallow graves along the Ganga in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, went viral.