For more than six miles, Dana Manjhi trudged toward his small village in India’s eastern state of Odisha — his dead wife’s body hoisted over his shoulder and his 12-year-old daughter sobbing by his side.
The haunting image was captured Wednesday by a local journalist who asked him why.
Manjhi said his wife, 42-year-old Amang Dei, died from tuberculosis in a government hospital in Bhawanipatna in the Kalahandi district. When Manjhi requested transportation, he said authorities told him they could not help him get her body home, according to CNN.
“Doctors said she had malaria and TB. All the money I had was spent on medicines,” he said in the video, which was translated by NDTV. He said he asked the hospital to “help take her body back to the village. They refused to make any arrangements. I had to carry her body on my shoulders.”
Odisha TV journalist Ajit Singh captured the heart-wrenching scene along a narrow road — several miles into his journey but 30 more miles to his home.
“The hospital authorities said that there are no vehicles. I pleaded with them, saying I am a poor person and cannot afford a vehicle to carry my wife’s body,” Manjhi told Odisha TV, according to the Hindustan Times. “Despite repeated requests, they said they cannot offer me any help.”
The reporter told CNN some locals “spotted Mr. Manjhi carrying the dead body of his wife accompanied by his 12-year-old daughter, Sanadei Manjhi, and called me. We filmed him carrying the dead body and asked him what happened.”
The government has since opened an investigation to determine whether “any wrongdoing has been done,” Kalahandi District Collector Brundha D told CNN.
However, a hospital official told the news station that medical personnel were unaware that Manjhi had taken his wife’s body from the hospital and that they had not denied him transportation.
“No one knows when her husband carried her out of the hospital,” Assistant District Medical Officer Jaghu Lal Agarwal told CNN. “Her death was not confirmed by the on-duty doctor, and no discharge slip was issued. The hospital staffs on duty were not informed by Mr. Manjhi.”
Officials claim Manjhi took the body in the middle of the night without telling anyone.
Indian politician Baijayant “Jay” Panda called the incident “shameful beyond words” and said Thursday that a government program created earlier this year to help families transport their loved ones’ bodies from government hospitals is being expanded.
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