In Bengaluru, Two Girls Bid Farewell To COVID Victims In A Respectful Manner

During the lockdown, several people are spending their time engrossed in web shows or video games. Two college girls, Nicole Furtado, 20, and her cousin Tina Cherian, 21, shocked by the rapidly increasing Covid fatalities, planned to intervene during the lockdown. They started moving victims' bodies and helping to give them a dignified funeral ceremony by holding the last rites of the deceased.

A queue of ambulances with bodies is standing outside Gate No. 4 of the Indian Christian Cemetery on Hosur Road at 12.45 pm Sunday. The two sisters at the graveyard's right-hand corner put on their PPE costumes and observed that there were eight dead bodies.

The girls are part of the team 'Here I'm Squad', a group of volunteers who have been assisting bereaved families in burying their Covid-infected relatives.

Nicole, a final-year Bachelor of Social Work student at St Joseph's College, and Tina, a final-year MBBS student at Manipal's Kasturba Medical College, are taking a break because their educational institutions are closed. Nicole said that they had been following the situation on the television, and her father, who had been volunteering at funerals, had told them that the situation on the ground was dire.

Tina explained her experience of how the journey of offering a funeral ceremony started, on May 10, the girls arrived at the cemetery and joined Sagayaraj's volunteers. The first day was a little frightening, as they began by transporting bodies from ambulances to the cemetery. She also said that, "the hang of things over the next few days," a report published by The Times Of India.

On a single day, the girls and Nicole's father, Mathew, dealt with 25 bodies. They also inspired a lot of other people to volunteer in dealing with the dead bodies by offering them the last rites.

In the past weeks, it was witnessed that several dead bodies were kept in the long waiting queue and many had not received their final rites at the pyre. In the meantime, a lot of dead bodies were found floating in the Ganga river in the neighbouring eastern UP.