Impoverished Indian man carries wife's dead body home for 12km

An impoverished man in India carried his wife's dead body for 12km after the hospital allegedly refused to provide an ambulance to take the body the 60km to their village. Amang Majhi was 42 when she died for tuberculosis at a hospital in Bhawanipatna town, Odisha.

Hospital officials refute the story, saying that Majhi's husband, Dana, took the body "without informing any hospital staff".

Dana told the BBC that he took the body after staff kept telling him to remove it: "I kept pleading with the hospital staff to provide a vehicle to carry my wife's body, but to no avail. Since I am a poor man and could not hire a private vehicle, I had no choice but to carry her body on my shoulder".

Dana walked 12km towards his village with his weeping 12-year-old daughter, carrying his wife's body wrapped in cloth. After 12km, people intervened and an ambulance was provided for the rest of the journey.

District Collector for Kalahandi, Brunda D, told NDTV that Dana left in the middle of the night without informing staff and that help would have been provided had he asked for it; though she also told the BBC that she arranged the ambulance that picked up Dana and his wife's body when she heard about what was happening.