Doctor asked Dana to remove wife's body: Daughter

Bhawanipatna: Sandini Majhi, daughter of Dana Majhi, the tribal man who shot into international headlines after carrying the body of his wife on his shoulders for 10 km due to the non-availability of a hearse van, has said her mother asked her father not to throw her body anywhere else, but to cremate her in Melhghar, Dana's native village.

Narrating the harrowing ordeal she and her father were made to go through at the Kalahandi District headquarters hospital, Sandini said, “My father went to the doctor. When my father told the medical staff that my mother had died, the staff asked him to take her body away from the hospital since there was no vehicle available.”

Sandini's statement rips apart the version of the Kalahandi district administration and hospital authorities that Dana Majhi took away his wife’s body without informing anyone late on August 24 night.

Dana Majhi, had carried his wife's body on his shoulders for 10 km before OTV's Bhawanipatna reporter Ajit Singh arranged for an ambulance that carried the body, along with Dana and his daughter, to his village 50 km away.

Melhghar, the village of Dana Majhi, is located at the foot of Tijamali hills. The village can be reached only on foot through hilly terrain with a stream making the task even more difficult. It is as if civilisation too has found the road too cumbersome to reach the village.

Gobind Padhani, a social activist, said, “Road communication and absence of medical facility are the big problems of the area. ANM workers are the only ones who provide basic healthcare to the people here.”