100 bodies found floating in the Ganges

LUCKNOW: Around 100 bodies have been found floating in a stream of India’s Ganges, sparking renewed concerns yesterday about the health of the sacred river where millions of Hindus cremate their dead, an official said.

The bodies were discovered in a shallow tributary of the Ganges near a cremation area in the northern state of Utter Pradesh, police and a local official said.

Television footage showed dogs and birds feeding on the bloated and decaying bodies floating in the stream, whose waters are thought to have receded recently.

An official estimated that about 80 bodies have so far been retrieved but warn the figure may rise.

“There could be around 100 bodies but we are yet to get an exact number,” district magistrate Saumya Agarwal said by phone from Unnao district.

“It seems that as the water level has receded in the river, these bodies have surfaced. We are trying to figure out the reason. We have sent a team of doctors to the spot to collect samples from bodies to investigate the case,” she added.

Police inspector general Satish Ganesh said the bodies were probably given river burials upstream at a cremation area known as Pariyar Ghat before becoming stranded in shallow water.

Millions of Hindus practice open-air cremation, with the ashes of loved ones scattered in the revered but heavily polluted river.

The Hindu nationalist government of Narendra Modi has vowed to clean up the river.

While it is illegal to dispose of the dead in rivers, some practising Hindus believe that giving an unwed girl a water burial will ensure she is born again into the family.

Poverty also drives people to conduct water burials to avoid the cost of cremation which, at a minimum of about US$40 (1,300 baht,) is far above a poor person’s monthly wage, while others are not cremated entirely. The bodies of some holy men are also placed in the river instead of being cremated, in accordance with tradition.

But an activist said damming — including in the upper reaches of the Ganges basin — meant there was not enough water to flush the bodies downstream and help with their breakdown.

“The problem is that there is not enough river flow,” said Mallika Bhanot of the nonprofit Ganga Ahvaan river protection group.