VELLORE: The lack of road access to Thani Marathur village in Anaicut’s Palampattu panchayat came back into focus on Tuesday when villagers carried the body of a six-year-old boy on a doli (makeshift cradle). They had to walk through a steep, narrow path from the hill village to the cremation ground, which is about 2 km away.
According to sources, M Sanjay, son of Manikavel and Vijaya, died on Monday. The cremation was carried out on Tuesday. Sanjay had allegedly gone to bath in a nearby pond with his friends and drowned accidentally. A Class 2 student of a government school, Sanjay had gone to his grandmother’s house in Kolaiyam village during the summer vacation and had returned to Thani Marathur as schools reopened on Monday.
Local youth searched for two hours before they found and recovered the body. Due to the absence of a motorable road to the cremation site, the body was carried on foot for nearly two hours through a rough path filled with rocks, thorny bushes and steep patches. Whenever people die, they have to be carried in this manner, villagers said.
They added that often bodies have fallen during the journey and had to be lifted again. “We have long been demanding a proper road, especially for reaching the cremation ground. We request the district administration to urgently build a road to the cremation ground and install streetlights along the 2 km path,” said the villagers.