With Phase-5 of the lockdown in West Bengal having kicked in as farcically as the previous bout, Kolkata contends with a collective disgrace in the span of a week, marking a low point for health authorities, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, the police and the medical fraternity.

Even as a state holiday was declared on Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy’s birth-cum-death anniversary on 1 July ~ this time to honour the corona warriors, socalled ~ it is cause for alarm that a section of doctors, allegedly under instructions from on high, are refusing to issue death certificates to suspected victims of Covid-19.

The predicament of two families in Amherst Street and Gouribari respectively, both in north Kolkata, exemplifies the unpardonably callous indifference. For over three months, there has been an overdose of ministerial rhetoric and unprofessional advice and even suspected fudging of data, far too little of clear guidelines should the worst happen, let alone the involvement of doctors in matters medical. It thus comes about that in the absence of explicit official guidelines, the body of a 70-year-old man in Amherst Street had to kept in an ice-cream freezer for 48 hours, pending cremation.

The collective evasion of elementary duty has reaffirmed the soul of irresponsibility ~ the doctor refused to issue a death certificate, Peace Haven refused to preserve a Covid-infected body, and almost on cue, emergency assistance was similarly refused by Swasthya Bhavan, the state health department headquarters, Amherst Street police station, and the KMC, which is duty-bound to keep track of births and deaths.

With no help from any quarter, the helpless family had no option but to let the body decompose at home, registering perhaps its deepest tragedy. Not wholly unrelated are reports of bodies being wrapped up and then dumped at Dhapa or being made to lie on hospital beds, next to patients undergoing treatment. The handling of bodies of Covid patients has been as inhumane as it has been incredible.

Of a piece with the Amherst Street tragedy has been the re-run ~ within 24 hours ~ at Gouribari, where the body of a sweetshop owner, a Covid-19 patient, had to be kept inside the shop for more than 16 hours. It strains credulity that local physicians and the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital, recently designated for the treatment of coronavirus patients, refused to issue the death certificate. Equally helpless were the KMC and the police.

The overwhelming lapse must seem to be deliberate as there has not been any defence of the ugly truth. Given the alleged hedging of reality, the data on afflictions and deaths has been less than accurate. A not dissimilar evasion ~ Covid or “chronic ailments”? ~ is said to have marked the passing of the distinguished historian, Professor Hari Vasudevan, on 10 May. The bereaved families are left in a bubble of untruths and fake news.