New Delhi: A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Supreme Court on Thursday seeking directions to constitute a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by a sitting or retired judge of the apex court to supervise the probe of nearly 100 dead bodies found floating in Ganga river in Bihar's Buxar and Uttar Pradesh's Ghazipur and Unnao districts.
The petitioners have sought fresh post-mortem report of the bodies to verify the cause of the death while contending that the authorities have buried the bodies by preparing verbatim false post-mortem reports to show that the probe has been conducted.
Read:| Border dispute between officials over burial site at Buxar Ghat in Unnao
The plea has been filed by Advocate Pradeep Kumar Yadav and Advocate Vishal Thakre who contend that states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have failed to facilitate cremating the dead bodies of Covid patients, have taken no action against the authorities and there is no check on whether the bodies found were covid infected or brutally murdered by someone and thrown.
Petitioners apprehended that death might be a case of illegal organ transplantation where after removing the organs, dead bodies were dumped in the river in the name of Covid.
The plea raises the issue of pollution in the Ganga river due to the dumping of dead bodies and accuses the states of not taking a single step towards the purification of the water body.
Read:| Scores of dead bodies float in Ganges near Buxar
Under Article 21, it is the states' responsibility to provide clean water to their citizens and states have failed to do so, added petitioners.
"The government of both the states i.e., Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are running away from the responsibility and instead of finding out as to how dead bodies are dumped into the holy river, a blame game has begun between both the states," read the plea.
Read:| Panic after bodies found buried in sand in UP's Unnao
