Police in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state arrested two people this week in connection with a viral video showing two people — one wearing full Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) — attempting to throw a corpse into the Rapti River in Uttar Pradesh’s Balrampur district, India’s Zee News reported on Monday.
The video appeared to show two men hoisting a corpse onto the edge of a bridge in what seemed to be preparatory steps before throwing the corpse off the bridge and into the Rafti River below. The corpse was inside an orange-colored body bag and one of the men wore a PPE suit that covered him from head to toe. The video, shot by people driving past the scene in a car, stopped short of showing the two men pushing the corpse into the river.
Balrampur police confirmed on Sunday they arrested two people in connection with the video, which circulated on social media in recent days. They also revealed in a statement shared to Twitter that they identified the deceased victim in the viral footage.
“On May 29, a video went viral on social media that showed PPE-clad persons dropping a corpse into the Rapti river. As per the Chief Medical Officer, Balrampur, the body has been identified as Prem Nath Mishra, who was admitted to a hospital on May 25,” Balrampur’s additional superintendent of police said in the statement.
“After he tested positive for COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus], he was shifted to another ward on May 26. He died on May 28. The body was handed over to his nephew on May 29 as per COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] guidelines,” he said. “A case has been registered and two people have been arrested.”
“The COVID [Chinese coronavirus] patient’s whose body was thrown into the river, was handed over to family under protocol. A case has been registered and a probe on [sic],” the Chief Medical Officer of Balrampur said on Sunday, confirming the police statement.
India suffered from a sharp spike in its Chinese coronavirus caseload from early April until late last month. A surging number of new infections and deaths from the disease pushed hospitals and crematoriums across India to work beyond capacity. Crematoriums in the national capital territory, Delhi, began using their parking lots and public parks to build makeshift funeral pyres after running out of space at their proper facilities. Families of coronavirus victims seeking to submit their loved one’s remains to a crematorium in Delhi and across India were often turned away or faced with days-long wait times. The conditions forced many families to seek alternative methods for disposing of their relative’s corpse.
Authorities in the eastern state of Bihar suspected that some of its residents and those of neighboring states were dumping coronavirus victims’ bodies into nearby rivers last month, as an unusual number of bodies of unidentified people began surfacing on the banks of local rivers in early May. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to the east.