Bhubaneswar: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has sought an Action Taken Report (ATR) from the Odisha government on the agonising experience of a 35-year-old man from Koraput district walking several kilometers with his wife’s body on shoulder.
The Commission has directed the Chief Secretary to submit a report within four weeks on the action taken by the state government to prevent such incidents.
Rights Activist and advocate Radhakanta Tripathy drew the attention of the NHRC to the harrowing experience of Samulu Pangi who carried the body of his wife Ide Guru (30) to his village in Pottangi block of Koraput district. The sequence of events corroborates violation of human rights, he claimed.
Pangi had admitted his ailing wife to a hospital in Sangivalasa in Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh. However, the doctors there said she was not responding to treatment and advised him to take her back home, around one 100 kilometres away.
After he hired an auto-rickshaw to return his wife died on the way and the driver of the vehicle refused to proceed further. Finding no other way, Pangi carried his wife’s body on shoulder.
Due to lack of medical facilities at his native place, negligent behavior at the hospital in Andhra Pradesh and language barrier for the police, the poor man suffered immensely, the petition contended.
The government is to be held responsible for not taking adequate measures to help them in their distress. The migrant labourers who worked on very low wages, most of the time less than minimum wages, without any record of their employment lose their sources of livelihood due to lack of proper implementation of labour laws and its inspection and follow up by the states and the Union government, the petitioner stated.
