dailyO
Politics

4 stories from India that will make humanity hang its head in shame

Advertisement
Arindam De
Arindam DeAug 27, 2016 | 17:28

4 stories from India that will make humanity hang its head in shame

Being in a television newsroom, we are not ever immune to sad, heart-rending stories. But sometimes we come across tales that shame humanity as a whole, stories that get etched into our psyche. So much so that you feel like a part of your self has changed forever. And yet, they continue to pour in week after week.

Here are four such stories from across the country this week:

Advertisement

1. A heavily pregnant woman, in the Chattarpur district of flood-ravaged Madhya Pradesh had to wade through six kilometres of knee-deep water to reach a hospital. The state's much vaunted ambulance service, Janani Express, reportedly needed more than half an hour to respond to the emergency. So the family hired an auto, which got stuck. Left with no option, they waded across a pond and walked a long distance to reach the hospital.

And the woman's reaction:

"This is not the first time, it happens a lot in the village," she said, adding she was in a lot of pain when the villagers carried her on a charpai (cot).

2. Next is the story of a man from Odisha. This happened earlier in the week on August 24 (Wednesday). On that fateful day, Dana Majhi of Kalahandi, accompanied by his teenaged daughter, carried his wife's dead body on his shoulders for nearly 12km.

His wife, Amangadei, had passed away the previous night due to tuberculosis at the district headquarters hospital at Bhawanipatna. Having no money for a vehicle, and after failing to get an ambulance or even a mortuary van from the hospital authorities, Majhi wrapped up his wife's dead body in old sheets and blankets, picked her up on his shoulders and started walking to his home in Melghar village in Kalahandi’s Thuamul Rampur block, about 60km away 

Advertisement

A silently sobbing daughter, carrying her schoolbag and walking alongside her father, shocked the conscience of the nation.

wife_082716044745.jpg
A silently sobbing daughter, carrying her schoolbag and walking alongside her father, shocked the conscience of the nation.

However, the hospital was quick to wash its hands off, saying that Majhi took away the body without informing them. There is another side to the story – Majhi said he moved the body after the hospital staff pushed him to remove it.

What's even more shocking is the fact that he did not carry the body walking through secluded paths. Instead, this horrifying spectacle took place on the main road, during broad daylight. And of course, there were people, who turned into voyeurs as this ordeal played out before their eyes. Are we living in hell? Oh, I forgot, that is Pakistan.

The only positive is that Odisha CM Navin Patnaik took notice, assured an inquiry, and launched a "Mahaprayan" service of ferrying dead bodies to their residence. At the time of writing this story, a district administration level probe had already given clean chit to the concerned hospital authorities.

The day Patnaik launched his "Mahaprayan" scheme, another shocking incident, again from Odisha, came to light.

3. The body of a 80-year-old widow was physically broken at the hip, wrapped up in a sheet to make it easier to carry, and was slung across a bamboo pole as there was no ambulance available. Salamani Behera was run over and killed by a goods train near the Soro railway station in Balasore, Odisha.

Advertisement
odi_082716044823.jpg
We have little respect for the living and lesser for the dead.

Although the Group Railway Police (GRP) were informed, they reached about 12 hours later and ordered the body to be taken to the district hospital for post-mortem. Rigor mortis had set in, making the body inflexible, so the quick fix solution was taken. Now I might sound insensitive, but this happens almost everyday, across morgues and hospitals. We have little respect for the living and lesser for the dead. The Odisha Human Rights Commission has issued notices but...

4. Imagine you're a little child, and your parents are going out, assuring they will come back in a while, only never to return again. Days go by, without food or water, locked in a room without ventilation. Seems too disgusting to be true, right? Well, this is the sad story of two sisters in India's national capital.

The girls - eight and three years old respectively - are currently under observation at Hindu Rao Hospital in New Delhi. One's head is covered in bandages, and the blisters on the other's body are still visible.

Their parents had a 5-year-old son, beside the sisters. The mother had already left almost two months ago with the son. According to police officials, the father, a factory worker, was an alcoholic and left the girls alone in a room with no food or water, for two or three days.

The sisters were brought to the hospital on August 19. They were found after their landlord found a strange smell emanating from the room they were in. He found the two girls, lying on the floor, huddled together in a blanket.

sis_082716044905.jpg
Doctors observing the girls say they had deep wounds infested with maggots, which had caused infections.

Doctors observing the girls say they have deep wounds infested with maggots, which have caused infections.

Now the physical wounds will heal with time, but about the mental scars?  

After the euphoria of Sindhu and Sakshi at the Olympics, the story of these two girls from House Number 304 of Nepali Colony in Samaypur Badli area in the national capital is another stark reality check for our "Beti Bachao Beti Padhao" campaign.

Last updated: August 27, 2016 | 17:28
IN THIS STORY
Please log in
I agree with DailyO's privacy policy