Puri: The Odisha government has reportedly given a clean chit to a district hospital in Bhawanipatna for not helping a poor man was forced to carry his dead wife on his shoulders for at least 10-kms – an incident which triggered a massive public outcry.
A probe into the incident by Kalahandi district collector Brundha D concluded that the man Dana Manjhi had left the hospital without informing anyone.
In his probe report, sub-collector Sukant Tripathy gave a clean chit to the hospital staff.
Tripathy said Majhi did not even collect the death certificate, said a ToI report.
Majhi had walked 10-km when people noticed him in the early hours of Wednesday and informed the local administration, which then provided an ambulance to him.
The extremely disappointing picture of Dama Majhi, from Kalahandi district, carrying his dead wife home from the hospital went viral on the social media, drawing sharp response from several quarters.
Manjhi had claimed that he was forced to do so because no vehicle was provided to him.
The viral video showed Dana Manjhi, a daily-wage labourer, with his 12-year-old daughter by his side, carrying the body of his wife Amang Dei on his shoulders, wrapped in a blanket.
The woman had died of TB at Bhawanipatna hospital, some 60km from their village in Melghara.
When questioned, Majhi had said that hospital authorities ignored his pleas for a vehicle. "I could not afford a vehicle on my own," he said.
Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik had recently launched a scheme providing free transport to carry the dead home for extremely poor familes.
For those who have missed, here is the shocking video.
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