Nabarangpur (Odisha): A 35-year-old man from Odisha's Koraput district walked several kilometres with his wife's body on his shoulder. The woman died in an auto-rickshaw while returning from a hospital in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and auto driver refused to carry a dead body on his autorickshaw.
"I took my wife to to a hospital in Sangivalasa in the Visakhapatnam district of neighbouring Andhra Pradesh but the doctors told me to take her back home and she was not responding to treatment. As my village is nearly 100 kilometres away from the hospital, so hired an autorickshaw for returning to his village,"Samulu Pangi - a resident of Koraput district in Odisha said.
"The condition of my wife suddenly deteriorated and she died midway near Vizianagaram. The auto driver refused to carry the body and dropped us on Chelluru Ring Road and left. My village was nearly around 80 kilometres away from that place and so I had no other but to walk with the body on my shoulder,"
Fortunately enough, Pangi was not so unfortunate like the fathers-son duo of Jalpaiguri in West Bengal who had carry the body because they couldn't manage one ambulance. Alerted by local people, Rural Circle Inspector TV Tirupati Rao and Gantyada sub-inspector Kiran Kumar stopped him. After getting to know the whole incident police arranged for an ambulance so that Pangi can take the body of his wife Ide Guru (30) home in Sorada village of Pottangi block.
"Initially it was difficult for us to gauge what Pangi was saying because he was speaking in Odia and we couldn't understand his language. Finally, one local resident who knew Odia came to us and explained the whole situation" a senior police officer said. Realising the gravity of the situation, the cops arranged for an ambulance that took Pangi and his wife's body to his village.
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Interestingly enough, in this case when police was prompt in responding to the needs of Pangi, at Jalpaiguri in West Bengal, a son had to carry the body of his mother because the hospital authorities charged a huge amount for the ambulance. Lakshmirani Dewan, a resident of Kranti village of Mal subdivision of Jalpaiguri, passed away in January this year after being admitted to the hospital with breathing difficulty. When her son Ramprasad Dewan approached an ambulance, the driver demanded an exorbitant amount. As the driver refused to lower down the rate, Ramaprasad along with his father, carried the body on their shoulders. They were ultimately helped with an ambulance by a voluntary organisation - Green Jalpaiguri.
This incident is also a reminder of a 2016 incident at Bhawanipatna in Odisha when another man, Dana Majhi, walked for around 12 kilometres carrying the body of his wife on his shoulder after being denied a hearse by a hospital. The incident hit international headlines and caused much embarrassment to the government in Odisha.
