Bahrain PM offers funds to man who carried wife’s body

Moved by the news of an Orissa tribal man carrying his wife’s body on his shoulders after being denied a mortuary van, Bahrain Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa has extended financial help to the impoverished man.

“His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa read about the man who carried his wife’s body for 12 km after the hospital where she died allegedly failed to provide an ambulance to send back her body to their village. The Premier was so upset by the news that he felt he had to do something to help,” Gulf Daily News reported on Sunday.

“The PMs office contacted Bahrain’s Indian Embassy, and, in an extraordinary humanitarian gesture, has donated a sum of money to help the man and his family,” the report said.

The newspaper, however, did not mention the donation amount.

Dana Majhi, the tribal man from Melghar under Thuamul Rampur block in Kalahandi district, had admitted his wife Amang Dei (42) to the District Headquarters Hospital who was suffering from tuberculosis.

Amang passed away late on Tuesday night. When Majhi asked for a hearse for transporting the body, a hospital staff allegedly told him to make his arrangements to take the body.

A distraught Majhi carried his wife on his shoulders to his village at Melghar, about 60 km from the health facility.

The tribal man, followed by his sobbing 12-year-old daughter, had travelled almost 12 km before a local reporter helped him. The scribe helped him get a hearse to cover the remaining distance.

Following this, a contractual nurse named Rajendra Prasad Rana has been shunted out. Besides, the district administration has disengaged a security agency from service for negligence in providing a vehicle to transport the body.

With this incident creating national and international outrage, major political parties in Orissa are leaving no opportunity to get some political mileage out of it.

While a six-member Congress fact-finding team on Saturday visited the village of Dana Majhi, a fact-finding team of the BJP on Sunday visited the spot to enquire about the incident.

Not content with the team’s visit, the Congress on Sunday launched a two-day padyatra from Melghar, the village of Dana Majhi, to Bhawanipatna. The 60-km rally, which is being headed by senior leader Bhakta Charan Das, will reach Bhawanipatna Monday.

The Congress activists will also gherao the collector’s office on August 29, party sources said.