Summary:
Varanasi: : The fury of coronavirus pandemic has devastated many families, especially the underprivileged ones, which do not have enough money to ensure proper treatment to their loved ones or to perform the last rites Covid-19 victims in a dignified manner.
To provide respite to people in distress, a philanthropist from Ghazipur district, Virendra Singh, and businessman Sanjay Rai Sherpuria, have started a unique bank, Baikunth Dham Antyeshti Lakdi Bank (wood bank), to arrange for the cremation of unclaimed bodies or of those who do not have money for rituals.
.
Case I: Civic authorities found the body of a woman, Ramdai, lying outside a crematorium in Ghazipur district.
When no one came for hours to claim the body, they understood that her kin must have abandoned her body fearing infection
Case II: Lakhana was seen crying next to the body of his wife at the district hospital’s mortuary.
When asked, he said he had no money to perform her last rites
Varanasi: : The fury of coronavirus pandemic has devastated many families, especially the underprivileged ones, which do not have enough money to ensure proper treatment to their loved ones or to perform the last rites Covid-19 victims in a dignified manner.
To provide respite to people in distress, a philanthropist from Ghazipur district, Virendra Singh, and businessman Sanjay Rai Sherpuria, have started a unique bank, Baikunth Dham Antyeshti Lakdi Bank (wood bank), to arrange for the cremation of unclaimed bodies or of those who do not have money for rituals.
The initiative comes at a time when people are deserting their Covid-19 positive kin in their final journey and even dumping bodies in rivers.
“People like Lakhana lend a face to the larger problem that emerges amid the Covid-19 crisis in individual families.
There is no dearth of cases like that of Ramdai.