A video that shows almost-decomposed bodies being dragged into a cremation truck at a crematorium in Kolkata has gone viral on social media.
The viral posts claim that the video is of COVID-19 victims whose bodies are being dragged into the truck. In the video, the locals can also be heard raising objections to the cremations happening in the crematorium in their locality.
However, the hospital from the morgue of which the bodies were loaded and the Kolkata Police have both called out the incident as fake, saying the bodies were not of COVID-19 victims.
In a letter to the Commissioner of Kolkata Police, Anuj Sharma, the Principal of the Nil Ratan Sircar (NRS) Medical College and Hospital, from the morgue of which the bodies were loaded into the truck, said:
“This has come to our notice that a video clip has gone viral on social media showing bodies being disposed from NRS morgue and the video has claimed that these are bodies of COVID patients, being disposed furtively. The fact is 14 number of unclaimed bodies were being handed over to the KMC (Kolkata Municipal Corporation) authority as per the list given by different police stations of the morgue’s jurisdiction. And none of these dead bodies were of COVID patients. The subject of the video is fake and you may please take necessary action in this regard.”
The Kolkata Police thereafter tweeted that the bodies in the video were not of COVID-19 victims.
The Governor of West Bengal, Jagdeep Dhankhar, also tweeted about the video, saying that he had sought an update from the home secretary on the same.
He later tweeted that the home secretary's response was a "virtual admission about callous handling of dead bodies" and that it was promised that the procedure will be streamlined.
The Kolkata Municipal Corporation is yet to respond to the video.
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