A Delhi businessman came to the rescue of a man, who was forced to roam around for several hours with his wife’s body in ambulance, after he was turned away by the hospital and his landlord.
A resident of Karkardooma village in East Delhi, Chhote Lal, who runs a tea shop, had admitted his wife Anju, 35, to Hedgewar Hospital around three days ago after she complained of high fever. In a suspected case of chikungunya, she died in the hospital on Tuesday.
When the grieving husband took her body to his rented Karkardooma home, his landlord allegedly refused his plea to keep his dead wife there. He then tried to keep the body in the lane where his house is situated but some neighbours had allegedly objected saying the children might get scared.
The landlord Babloo, however, later claimed that he had given Lal money so he could keep the body in an AC ambulance since it would have decayed in Lal’s poorly-ventilated one-room accommodation.
Lal was allegedly also turned away by the hospital where he had tried to keep the body.
With no option left, Chhote Lal kept roaming with his wife’s body wife in the ambulance for around four hours before he was spotted around midnight by police beat staff, near the Cross River Mall, who came to know about his plight.
In a strange turn of circumstances, the police staff called up Bhanwar Singh, a businessman residing in the area around 12.30 am who then allowed Lal to keep the body overnight at his residence.
Some policemen and Singh’s staff later helped Lal arrange the last rites of his wife, who was cremated on Wednesday morning.
(With PTI inputs.)
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