A poor migrant worker Samulu Pangi carried the body of his wife Ide Guru (30) to his native place to perform her last rites.
NHRC (File Photo)
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has sought an Action Taken Report from the Odisha chief secretary on the harrowing experience of a 35-year-old man from Koraput district walking several kilometres with his wife’s body on his shoulder for last rites of the deceased.
Drawing attention of the apex human rights panel, Supreme Court Lawyer and Human Rights Activist Radhakanta Tripathy contended that a poor migrant worker Samulu Pangi carried the body of his wife Ide Guru (30) to reach his native place at Sorada village in Pottangi block to perform her last rites. The sequence of events corroborates violation of human rights.
Pangi had admitted his ailing wife at a hospital in Sangivalasa in Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh. However, the doctors there said she was not responding to treatment and advised him to take her back home, around one hundred Kilometres away. Even though he hired an auto-rickshaw, the driver of the vehicle after some kilometers refused to move further. Finding no other way, Pangi carried his wife’s dead body on shoulder. Due to lack of medical facilities at his native place, negligent behavior at the hospital in Andhra Pradesh and language barrier for the Police, Pangi, (the deceased’s husband) suffered immensely, the petition contended.
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The government is to be held responsible for not taking adequate measures to help them in their distress. The migrant labourers who worked on very low wages, most of the time less than minimum wages, without any record of their employment lose their sources of livelihood due to lack of proper implementation of labour laws and its inspection and follow up by the States and the Union Government, Tripathy pointed out.
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