KINDNESS IN DESPAIR

DETERMINED THAT NOBODY BE DENIED THEIR LAST HONOURS, THIS GOOD SAMARITAN IS NOW EXTENDING THAT DIGNITY TO IMPOVERISHED COVID VICTIMS AND THEIR FAMILIES

- BANDEEP SINGH

IS 9.30 PM AND JATINDER SINGH SHANTY is sitting in an ambulance in a par­ king lot in Jhilmil Colony, fielding calls asking him to pick up and cremate Covid victims bodies. “I’ve been living in this ambulance in the parking lot for 21 days now,” says the former BJP MLA, two­time councilors from East Delhi and a part­time real estate agent. Since his entire family has Covid, he can’t go home and risk the infection. The ambulance is his bedroom as well as a command center. He also uses it instead of a car to move around in the city. “You never know when you may be asked to take someone to the hospital or pick up a Covid victim’s body,” he says.

Shunty and 22 volunteers from the Shaheed Bhagat Singh Sewa Dal (SBSSD), an organization he founded in 1995, have cremated 3,551 Covid victims in Delhi since the pandemic broke out in March 2020. Of these, 2,199 cremations have taken place just between April 1 and May 16. “We have worked 16-18 hours at a stretch this time,” he says. “In the magnitude of deaths and the heartless manner in which people have died, this tragedy compares to Partition or the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and Bhopal gas tragedy.” Using their fleet of 18 ambulances, Shunty and the volunteers start the day early, picking up bodies from hospitals or homes where people have died. They sanitize the bodies, pack them in plastic covers and bring them to crematoriums, primarily the Seemapuri facility, which they have taken on lease from the MCD.