Unable to find a vehicle, man carries his mother’s body on a motorcycle for 18 km in Palasa town, Andhra Pradesh

With the number of active COVID-19 cases in Andhra Pradesh crossing the 100,000 mark and continuing to rise, even finding a vehicle to carry the dead has become near impossible. In a shocking incident at Palasa town in Andhra Pradesh’s Srikakulam district, a man was forced to carry his mother’s body on a two-wheeler for 18 kilometres before she could be cremated.

The woman, who hails from a tribal hamlet in Mandasa Mandal in Srikakulam district, had been showing COVID-19 symptoms, and K. Narendra, the son, took her to the Neelamani Durga Hospital in Palasa town. On the recommendations of a doctor, the woman was taken for a CT scan test to a nearby diagnostic centre. However, even as the woman, Narendra and Ramesh, his brother-in-law, were waiting for the CT scan test results, she collapsed and breathed her last.

Unable to find an ambulance or an autorickshaw to carry his mother’s body to the cremation ground, Narendra and Ramesh ferried the body on a motorcycle. Video footage shows the man riding the bike with his mother’s body behind him and his brother-in-law holding the body in place. The shocking video also shows the local police stopping the two men, briefly questioning them and then letting them off.

Narendra then drove the two-wheeler to Killoyi tribal hamlet, 18 km from Palasa town, where his mother was finally cremated.

The CT scan reports later revealed that Chenchu did indeed have COVID-19.

B. Raja Kumari, Srikakulam Superintendent of Police, has been quoted in the media as saying that that the family did not reach out to 108, the dedicated service for COVID-19 patients. The officer, however, confessed that some private vehicles may have refused to transport the body, forcing Narendra to use the motorcycle.