Ashis Sinha I Bokaro: In a tragic incident, the wife of a deceased man in Bokaro Steel City performed his last rites as relatives and his daughters were stuck in the lockdown.
Lalit Singh (72), a retired Bokaro Steel Plant’s employee was residing at Sector 5 along with his wife Shushma Rani (62). On Tuesday night suddenly Lalit felt a health issue; he also started having trouble breathing.
His wife took him to the hospital at Chas where doctors declared Lalit as brought dead. Later the body was shifted in the mortuary at BGH and Sushma informed her daughters and relatives, but due to lockdown, they were not able to come to the funeral.
Lalit has only two daughters, the elder one Anupma is residing in the USA while Shalini is in Canada. Due to the lockdown in effect both of them did not rush and lastly, his wife stepped up and performed the last rites. There were hardly 8-10 neighbors at the cremation place.
Lalit was the son of Late Krishna Singh- a freedom fighter and first woman MLA of united Bihar who represented the assembly seat of Baheri (Darbhanga) for three consecutive times after Independence in 1952, 1957 and 1962 assembly polls.
“It’s very heart wrenching,” said Sushma adding, “none of the relatives, even our daughters could participate in their father’s last rites; they watched the funeral rites on Facebook live streaming.”
About 18 months earlier both of them (daughters) had met with their father when they came to Bokaro, said Sushma.
The coronavirus pandemic has hit life badly and changed everything in life. Like Anupma and Shalini, many people who are staying away from home and have lost loved ones during the coronavirus pandemic are forced to watch the funeral services online due to restrictions to curtail the outbreak.