Bhubaneshwar: Bahrain Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa has extended financial help to Dana Majhi, the man from Odisha who carried his wife’s body on his shoulders after being denied a mortuary van.
“His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa read about the man, who carried his wife’s body for 12 km after the hospital where she died allegedly failed to provide an ambulance for her body to be sent back to their village. The Premier was so upset by the news that he felt he had to do something to help,” Gulf Daily News reported on Sunday.
“The Prime Minister’s office contacted Bahrain’s Indian Embassy, and, in an extraordinary humanitarian gesture has donated a sum of money to help the man and his family,” the report said.
One of the leading newspapers in Bahrain carried the news on Sunday’s edition. The incident in Odisha had drawn international media attention.
It may be recalled that, On August 24 in Odisha’s backward Kalahandi district, Dana Manjhi was forced to carry his wife’s body on his shoulder for 10 kilometres due to alleged lack of an ambulance. Majhi’s 42-year-old wife died of tuberculosis a day before at the district hospital at Bhawanipatna. Majhi traveled almost 10km before being spotted by a local television reporter. The scribe helped him get a hearse to cover the remaining distance.
