A 45-year-old man, who used to ply taxis in Mumbai and had returned to his village in Hazaribagh district after the lockdown, died on Wednesday, but local residents did not allow his body to be cremated on Thursday when it was known that he had tested positive for the coronavirus.
The man, a resident of Ichak, was admitted to Hazaribagh Medical College and Hospital (HMCH) on June 14. Subsequently his condition deteriorated and he died on Wednesday. He is the first Covid positive person to die in Hazaribagh district.
His body was kept in the mortuary since his Covid test report was awaited from Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi. On Thursday, after his test reports came in, the hospital authorities handed over the body to Mohammad Khalid, a social worker who conducts last rites of unclaimed bodies.
Khalid told The Telegraph Online that was told to cremate him, taking all precautions as mandated in the Union Health ministry guidelines. But he said he wasn’t allowed to cremate the body at the Khirgaon Muktidham.
The committee that oversees muktidham suggested that Khalid take the body to Konar river 3km away and cremate it there. But given the hostile mood of the people, Khalid brought back the body to the HMCH mortuary where he also volunteers as a supervisor.
Sources said that two sons of the man who died on Wednesday were also admitted to the isolation ward of HMCH. Their swab samples have been sent for testing to RIMS for coronavirus infection.
On Thursday, Hazaribagh district reported 19 new coronavirus cases, taking the tally of active cases to 38.
Of the fresh cases, 10 persons had returned from abroad _ nine from Bangladesh and one from Kuwait. Ten of the 19 new cases are from Barhi block, eight from Chouparan and one from Ichak.
All of them have been shifted to a dedicated Covid ward of HMCH, civil surgeon Sanjay Jaiswal said.
Apart from the ten who returned from Bangladesh and Kuwait, the others were daily wage labourers working in Mumbai, Delhi and places in West Bengal and Karnataka. One of them is a woman who got infected after she came in contact with a migrant labourer who had tested positive.
Officials said all the 19 people had been quarantined in government facilities upon their return to the district.
Of the 38 active cases in the district, 36 patients are undergoing treatment at HMCH while two are admitted to RIMS, Ranchi.
A total of 115 patients have been discharged till now in phases after they recovered from the virus. So far, 4,033 samples have been sent for testing with 3,840 coming back negative and 153 positive.