Here’s a question! Just how much worth would you attach to a non-living person. Rather, let’s be clear and call it a dead body. The main point here being- does a dead body have absolutely no value? Does it hold no worth whatsoever. The deceased, it must not be forgotten, could be someone’s father, husband, wife, sister, daughter or better yet, someone’s best friend or soulmate. It was, until its death, a living being, someone with a beating heart and feelings. No?
Would you, therefore, put a price to a dead body and ask for something in return, like a monetary favour if in case you were asked to transport a dead body to its place of postmortem? Can you, in your living senses, imagine that such a thing would ever happen?
Well, as if the harrowing tales of the loss of countless lives in India owing to the COVID 19 scare weren’t already troubling, here comes a piece of shocker from the city of Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh.
It is heartbreaking, it’s shocking and upon listening to it, it could well be blood-boiling.
Believe it or not, but an auto driver working in the city of Gorakhpur actually asked a woman for a sum of Rs 4,500 so as to transport a dead body to its place of postmortem. The dead body, it turned out, was that of a vegetable seller in the city and as per a report published by widely-read newspaper Amar Ujala, the relatives of the deceased man stated that the demand for money was made by an auto driver by the name of Raju.
Shocking- right? What else can anyone say about such a shameful episode?
But rather unsurprisingly so, a formal complaint has been registered with CM Yogi Adityanath. The deceased, upon research, was found to be a man named Kamlesh, who used to sell vegetables at the Humayupur area of the city of Gorakhpur. This last Saturday morning, he left home with a sum of Rs 20,000. It was around 8 A.M. that day.
But when he did not return until the night, a search was conducted to find out just where did Kamlesh go. Next day, as it turned out, a post was put on Social media regarding the death of an unidentified man. It was later confirmed that the deceased was none other than Kamlesh.
Now comes the most shocking part. A report published on India.com happened to state the following:
Upon getting the information, Kamlesh’s brother Bhola reached BRD Medical College where he was told that some people had admitted Kamlesh in a critical condition at the hospital on Saturday evening. He died during treatment at 5pm the same day. When no one came forward to claim his body, his body was kept in the mortuary. When When Bhola reached mortuary, he found an auto driver named Raju who allegedly demanded Rs 3500 in lieu of transporting Kamlesh’s body to the postmortem house. He even demanded another Rs 1000 to wrap his body in polythene.
Such incidences, don’t you think, really represent the very lowest ebb of humanity, that where we’ve reached in times where peace and amity are must and values that one simply can’t function without?
The deceased’s wife Kiran has written a complaint to CM Yogi and demands appropriate action to be taken against the auto driver. May she get justice!