Vijayakant offers land on college premises for burials

‘WHO has said virus cannot be spread through a dead person’

21/04/2020, STAFF REPORTER,CHENNAI

VijayakantK. Pichumani

After residents violently objected to the burial of the body of a neurosurgeon who had succumbed to COVID-19, DMDK founder Vijayakant on Monday offered a piece of land on the premises of his Andal Azhagar Engineering College in Mamandur for burying those who had died of the disease.

In a statement, Mr. Vijayakant said he was pained by reports of people objecting to such burials and even resorting to violence to prevent them. “We are all going to die one day. If doctors who attend to patients are treated like this, we have to think about the common people. When Tamils give dignified burials to animals, it is shocking to see them objecting to the burial of a doctor’s body,” he said.

Mr. Vijayakant said people were attacking ambulances and their drivers despite the World Health Organisation and the State government having clarified that the virus cannot be spread through a dead person. DMDK treasurer Premalatha Vijayakant urged people not to attack ambulances and those accompanying the bodies of the deceased