Dumping of COVID-19 victims' bodies in K'taka: Mayawati demands guilty be punished

Lucknow/Bengaluru: After a video purportedly showed health workers tossing bodies of COVID-19 victims in a large pit in Karnataka, BSP chief Mayawati on Wednesday said the incident is the “height of cruelty and insult to humanity”.

She demanded that the guilty be punished.

“The tragedy that the bodies of COVID-19 victims being thrown into trenches in Ballari, Karnataka is height of cruelty and an insult to humanity. Though incidents related to inhuman cruelty with corona patients are rampant but guilty of Ballari must be punished by the state government,” Mayawati said in a tweet.

After the video surfaced online, Karnataka Health Minister B Sriramulu on Tuesday said the workers concerned have been suspended.

Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa expressed shock over the incident. “The behaviour of the health workers with the dead bodies of the COVID-19 victims is inhuman and painful. I appeal to the health workers to be kind to the COVID victims and perform the last rites of the deceased with honour. There is no religion bigger than humanity,” he had said in a series of tweets.

In a separate tweet, Mayawati asked the Centre to extend the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana till the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In order to check ignominy of starvation on account of long unprecedented hardship & unemployment due to coronavirus and the subsequent nationwide lockdown, the PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojna must continue not till November but till the end of the pandemic, this is the demand of BSP,” Mayawati said.