Indian man carries body of deceased daughter eight kilometres for autopsy

Girl went missing after cyclone ravaged Indian state

A man in India's cyclone-hit Odisha state carried the body of his deceased seven-year-old daughter over a distance of eight kilometres for want of autopsy. The Indian Express reported on Friday.

Babita had gone missing after Cyclone Titli and declared dead by the state government. She was assumed dead based on information from local panchayat functionaries.



“Babita was swept away due to landslide during Cyclone Titli and subsequent flood caused by extremely heavy rainfall in the Mahendragiri hills of Gajapati district,” a special relief correspondent said. “We found my daughter’s body near a nullah on Wednesday afternoon. Police were informed and they came to our village this morning and took photographs of the body,” her father Mukund Dora said.



He further told reporters the force did not make arrangements to shift the body to a hospital for an autopsy. Instead police 'instructed' him to take it there.

Since the roads were damaged and he had no money for transport, he was left with no option but to "put the body in a bag and carry it on his shoulder." Police arranged an auto-rickshaw and the body was brought to Kainpur hospital after.

Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan inspected the disaster-struck site and said, “It is painful to witness a man carrying the body of his daughter on his shoulder and walking down to hospital for post-mortem to a hospital.”

Earlier in 2016, a destitute man from Kalhandi district walked over 10 kilometres carrying his deceased wife on his shoulder from a public hospital after being denied a hearse.

This article originally appeared in The Indian Express.