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Some volunteers of an NGO conducting the deceased’s last rites
In a deeply disturbing incident in Odisha’s Keonjhar district, a man’s body was denied dignity even in death, as villagers refused to conduct his last rites following a hospital post-mortem. Eventually, an NGO intervened to ensure a humane cremation on Tuesday.
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According to sources, a shocking incident from Parjanpur village under Sadar police limits in Keonjhar has brought to light how superstition and social stigma can rob even the deceased of dignity. After Bideshi Patra, a local resident, succumbed to snakebite, his body was not accepted by either his family members or his neighbours for funeral rites because it had undergone a post-mortem at the District Headquarters Hospital (DHH).
The tragic chain of events began when Patra was bitten by a venomous snake while sleeping at home. Though he was rushed to the DHH in critical condition, he succumbed during treatment. Following the standard procedure, a post-mortem was conducted.
However, once the autopsy was over, people from his neighbourhood, including the close relatives, refused to take the body back to the village, citing age-old beliefs that bodies dissected for post-mortem are inauspicious and should not be brought home. Even his daughter, Niroda Patra, was left overwhelmed and helpless, unsure of how to proceed.
Seeing her in distress, the matter was reported to the hospital outpost police and a local NGO, ‘Bharasa’, known for supporting abandoned cases. The volunteers of ‘Bharasa’ stepped in, arranging all necessary procedures, and finally carried out the cremation at Dhangarpada Adarsh Cremation Ground.
This act of compassion from NGO ‘Bharasa’ is not their first. The organisation has already performed 143 cremations of abandoned or rejected bodies across the district, becoming a symbol of humanity and service.
Social activists say incidents like these highlight the urgent need for awareness campaigns to counter superstitions and promote dignified death for all, irrespective of beliefs surrounding medical procedures like post-mortem.
“Parjanpur villagers have a social stigma that they do not take any dead body to their village or even touch it, after a post-mortem of the body is conducted. However, ‘Bharasa’ Parivar usually cremates the abandoned or unidentified bodies in the district,” the NGO president, Lambodar Mahanta, expressed to mediapersons.
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