ANANTAPUR: The family of a 75-year-old retired teacher in New Town faced a situation when they had to cremate the mortal remains of the person who reportedly succumbed to COVID-19 in Anantapur two days back.
The family could not get permission from any burial ground till evening. They had to eventually spend about Rs 1 lakh towards transportation and other expenses after convincing another burial ground on the outskirts.
More than 60 members in the family of the retired teacher are settled in different houses in the colony. When the person fell sick and could not get treatment at nursing homes suspecting that he was COVID-19 positive, he finally was admitted in ICU at the Government General Hospital here.
“Doctors handed over the body by packing it with all measures mandated for COVID positive patients. Burial grounds refused permission to burn the body. We had to conduct final rites at a burial ground in the outskirts”, Lakshmi Narayana, a family member of the deceased said and further added the government should set up additional burial grounds.
Lack of control on burial grounds and the panic situation due to increased number of deaths, people are facing problems with deaths due to COVID-19 positive or normal deaths. A trader from Gandhi Bazar succumbed to the pandemic a week ago. While no relatives dared to bring the body to the burial ground, the family members had to pay Rs.70,000 to people who came forward. Further, the body was also lifted with the help of a JCB.
The Harischandra Ghat burial ground watchman pointed out that previously only few communities burnt bodies while others were buried.
“But, a majority of families, irrespective of caste, prefer to burn bodies. At least four bodies of normal deaths and due to corona are burnt in a day after COVID-19 outbreak”, he said.
Earlier, people resisted the cremation of the body of a ward volunteer who died of coronavirus at Madakasira town. The relatives had to go to the outskirts for burial.
Collector Gandham Chandrudu directed the community heads and burial ground committees to be part of the service instead of refusing bodies.
