KOLKATA: Facing flak, the West Bengal government on Saturday dismissed as a “one-off incident” the contents of a video showing decomposed bodies being loaded into a van by the city civic body in daylight and said it has no links with the coronavirus pandemic.
Attempts to “decontextualise the incident” and project it as a part of the pandemic despite the explanatory communiques to Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar “adversely affected the social mind”, the state health department tweeted.
“Government of West Bengal condemns untruths,” it said.
Dhankhar had expressed concern over the video, which had gone viral on Thursday.
He had sought a report on it from the state home secretary.
The city police and the state health department had called the video a “fake” and asserted that the bodies were unclaimed ones from a government hospital morgue.
The video had also shown protests by locals at Garia, a suburb in the southern fringes of the city where the incident had allegedly taken place, who claimed that the bodies were those of novel coronavirus victims.
The government said that all forms of transparency had been maintained and opportunities were given to the bereaved relatives to show their last respects to the dead and for the disposal of their bodies amid the pandemic. (PTI)
