After Bihar, bodies found abandoned in Ganga in UP

A day after partially decomposed bodies of suspected Covid-19 patients were spotted in the Ganga in Bihar’s Buxar district, over a dozen corpses were found floating in the river at separate places in Ghazipur district on Monday and prompted officials to order a probe.

“Our officials are present on the spot and an investigation is underway. We are trying to find out from where these bodies came,” said MP Singh, district magistrate of Ghazipur, which borders Buxar.

“I received information that two bodies were floating in the Ganga in the Bara area of Ghazipur. I along with my team reached the spot. We found that two bodies were floating in the river. This is a matter of grave concern,” said Ramesh Kumar Maurya, the sub-divisional magistrate of Sevrai division. Maurya said they do not know where the bodies came from. He refused to comment over the Buxar administration’s claim that the bodies found in the Ganga in Bihar had come from Uttar Pradesh.

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A police officer, who did not want to be named, said a vigil would be maintained along the river stretch in Ghazipur’s Gahmar area. Locals have been asked to inform police in case they see anyone dumping a body in the river.

Shyamnarayan Singh, a social worker, said relatives of four people dumped their corpses in the Ganga as they could not afford their cremation.“Such incidents are being reported for the last one week from several villages in the area,” he claimed.

On Tuesday, Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat called the recovery of bodies from the river “unfortunate” and asked concerned states to take immediate cognisance. “The incident of corpses found floating in Ganga in Buxar region of Bihar is unfortunate. This is definitely a matter of investigation. The Modi government is committed to the cleanliness of... Ganga. This incident is unexpected...,” Shekhawat tweeted.

(With agency input)