ANANTAPUR: When no one came forward to perform the last rites of a 45-year-old software engineer who succumbed to COVID-19 in Uravakonda of Anantapur district, Uravakonda Sub Inspector of Police K Dharni Babu took it upon himself to help lay the victim to rest.
The SI had earlier helped shift the software engineer to the Anantapur Government Hospital for treatment, when no one stepped forward to help the family.
The software engineer, who was working in Hyderabad, had returned home to Uravakonda, where his ailing parents were living, due to the lockdown in March. He arrived with his wife, while their children were sent to his relatives in Bellary.
On July 10, he developed a fever and visited an RMP nearby, and a couple of days later the fever subsided. However, on July 15, he developed a high fever, and his wife wanted him taken to the Government General Hospital in Anantapur.
But no relatives, friends or neighbours came forward to help, suspecting he had COVID-19. At that time, someone advised the desperate wife to approach the police, and she contacted Sub-Inspector Dharani Babu, who arranged transportation for them to Anantapur.
On July 16 afternoon, the software engineer died, and later, his test results returned positive for coronavirus. The hospital authorities arranged to send the body back to Uravakonda, but after it reached Uravakonda, no one came to help the grieving woman. As her in-laws were bed-ridden, she did not know what to do, and approached the SI again.
"I was moved by her plight. Birth and death are equally important, and performing one’s final rites is giving him the respect he is due," Dharani Kumar told TNIE, adding that people should not forget that they are humans too.