The Bihar assembly elections echoed many slogans with the prominent being “Bihar me bahaar hai, Nitishee Kumar hai”. But the utter lawlessness in Bihar has shattered all these hopes of all round development (bahaar). Already, the state was suffering from acute shortage of health and education infrastructure. Now, it has taken another devastating blow, registering new lows with corruption.
Bribery from devastated parents
What can be more pathetic and inhuman than to demand bribery from crying parents whose beloved son had just died. This is not a story from a sad movie but has actually happened under the nose of Sushasan Babu, that is, Nitish Kumar. Evidently, an employee of the morgue of the government hospital had allegedly demanded the parents a bribe of Rs 50,000 to release the dead body of their son. After which the poor parents had to beg for money to give bribery to the corrupt government employee. The heart wrenching video of the parents begging for money went viral.
After the video went viral the Samastipur Sadar hospital administration had to face massive backlash. They were forced to send the body along with a watchman to the family’s house. Earlier on 25th May, Mahesh Thakur’s mentally-challenged son, Sanjeev Thakur went missing from Aahar village. On June 7, when the family went to identify his body, Nagendra Mallick, refused to hand over the body and allegedly demanded Rs 50,000.
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As usual the alleged hospital worker, Nagendra Mallick has denied asking for money. But the Samastipur civil surgeon Dr SK Chaudhary accepted the fact that such cases have been raised before and assured that strict actions will be taken. He said,“The staffer may ask for money, but he cannot demand Rs 50,000. There has been a history of asking for money in the past too. Strict action will be taken against the accused. We have formed a team to investigate the matter”.
Samastipur, Bihar | Parents of a youth beg to collect money to get the mortal remains of their son released from Sadar Hospital after a hospital employee allegedly asked for Rs 50,000 to release the body pic.twitter.com/rezk7p6FyG
— ANI (@ANI) June 8, 2022
Face Saving attempt by the administration
The administration seems to have gone overboard for face saving after the incident became viral. Vinay Kumar, the DM in-charge, refused all the allegations and termed it as a conspiracy to defame the administration. He said, “In my first investigation, this matter seems far from the truth. On June 6, the body was found by the Musrigharari Police station. The next day, the relatives came and identified the body. The body had to be handed over via police. Hence, the allegations surfaced”.
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He added, “I am not authorised to investigate the death anyway. His body has been handed over to his family through the Police station. I think this video defames the administration. Seems like an attempt to do it”.
It is a shame that corruption has percolated so deep that parents of a dead person are seen as a way to mint money. This dehumanising story exposes all the tall claims of the Nitish government in Bihar. Further, it also highlights the apathy of corrupt officials and reflects the sorry state of affairs in Nitish’s Bihar.
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