MP: Man cremates wife using 'garbage' after unable to pay for wood

Neemuch (Madhya Pradesh): In another case of apathy, a tribal man from Madhya Pradesh's Neemuch area was forced to cremate his wife using garbage, tyres, and plastic bags after the crematorium turned him down as he was unable to pay Rs.2500 for the wood to be used in the rites. Jagdish Bheel, belonging to Bheel community, lost his wife, Neji Bai, 67, on Friday at 4 am after she succumbed to her illness. Distraught by his wife's death, he soon became anxious as he did not have enough money to cremate his wife. He went from pillar to post and pleaded to every district official to make arrangements for wood to cremate his wife, but much to his dismay, everyone turned him away. "My wife died at around 4 am then around 7 a.m., I first went to a Municipal Corporation and pleaded them to arrange for wood, to which they said that they don't have any logs and asked to pay Rs.2500 to buy wood. But I couldn't because I did not have that much money with me. Then I went to visit Mundra, the city councillor and he also refused to help and told me to visit Bhil community's councillor, but he didn't help me as well," Bheel told ANI. He said that one of the workers in Municipal Corporation also asked him to throw his wife in a nearby river. Unable to cremate his wife, the family of Jagdhish Bheel decided to bury Neja Bhai in nearby Ratnagarh area. But one of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) members, Pintu Bana, stopped them midway and called in other members and asked them to leave the place immediately. More than 12 hours had passed and Jagdish was still struggling to cremate his wife. Left with no choice, his family finally decided to go to the nearby cemetery but the roads leading to the cemetery were heavily damaged for the past 22 days. Having exhausted all the options, Jagdish finally decided to cremate his wife's body with tyres, garbage and plastic bags. "Since I did not have Rs.2500, let alone money to buy food, I decided to cremate my wife in a nearby field. I gathered wood, tyres, and other garbage materials," he said. "We belong to Bhil Community, we fill our stomach by cutting woods, where will we go if nobody is willing to listen to us," he added.