No money for ambulance, Hyderabad beggar carries wife's corpse for 60 km in a pushcart

The police said that the man pushed the cart from Hyderabad to Vikarabad.

news News

A beggar from Hyderabad carried his wife’s corpse in a pushcart for over 60km, travelling all the way till Vikarabad town in Telangana, as he did not have money to arrange for an ambulance.

Ramulu, a native of a village in Sangareddy's Manoor mandal, reportedly came to Hyderabad six years ago, where he was living with his wife Kavitha (46). Both husband and wife were suffering from leprosy.

"On Friday night, following Kavitha's death, Ramulu decided to take his wife's body to his native village for the last rites. However, he couldn't afford an ambulance service. So, he put his wife's body in a pushcart, and started walking," Vikarabad Circle Inspector Ravi told TNM.

While the CI stated that Ramulu's wife died near Langer Houz in Hyderabad, other reports suggest that she died at the Lingampally railway station.

The police said that although Ramulu wanted to push the cart to his village in Sangareddy district, he lost his way sometime in the night on Friday.

Having apparently been pushing the cart from Friday morning, an exhausted Ramulu collapsed and broke down into tears soon after reaching Vikarabad town on Saturday afternoon.

In a video shot by one of the locals, Ramulu told the people gathered around him, that he tried to hire an ambulance and failing that to get private transport as well. "I even asked autos but they were charging Rs 5,000. Where do I go for that money? I don't even have a single rupee on me."

Fortunately for him, the local residents were sympathetic to his cause. After hearing his story, they began pooling in money to pay for an ambulance to take his wife’s body to his village.

They also called the police, and with their help, an ambulance was arranged from the Sri Ramakrishna Vivekananda Trust to ferry Ramulu and his wife's body to his native village on Saturday evening.