A Supreme Court lawyer has moved the apex court seeking a probe by a special investigation agency into separate incidents of bodies washing up on the banks of the Ganga river in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
Advocate Pradeep Kumar Yadav said the court should intervene and direct the authorities to conduct autopsies to determine the cause of death.
Mr. Yadav said about 100 bodies were found “floating” in the river at Buxar in Bihar and Ghazipur and Unnao in Uttar Pradesh.
“The petitioner, therefore, seeks the intervention of this court to investigate the suspicious death of 100 citizens whose bodies are flushed out into the river Ganga inhumanly. No FIR has been registered by the authorities. Even to the best of knowledge of the petitioner, no post-mortem was conducted,” Mr. Yadav submitted.
He alleged that the “administration/police have buried the bodies by preparing verbatim false post-mortem reports, which was eye-wash to show that investigation was conducted”.
“It is therefore, requested that each body be removed and proper post-mortem be conducted in order to verify the cause of death,” the petition sought.
The plea said the court should appoint either a sitting or retired judge of the Supreme Court to head the special investigation agency.
“The State governments of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have failed to provide the adequate resources to cremate the bodies of COVID-19 patients and also had not taken any action against the authorities responsible for this… No one knows or have checked if the bodies are really that of COVID-19 patients or whether they are murder victims… Authorities are busy managing the COVID situation,” Mr. Yadav said.
