Bihar villagers take dead body to bank, demand money from account for funeral

Villagers in Bihar took a man’s corpse to the bank to withdraw money from his account for his funeral.

Since the deceased had not named a nominee, bank officials had expressed their inability to release the money. Infuriated villagers laid the body inside the bank for three hours.

Later, when the local police intervened, the bank officials gave ₹10,000 to the villagers under their Corporate Social Responsibility fund for the cremation. The man had ₹1,17,298 in his account.

The incident took place on Tuesday. Sexagenarian Mahesh Yadav, a daily wager and a bachelor with no living relatives, died at Singriyawan village under Shahjahanpur Police Station in rural Patna. He was living alone in a hut built on someone else’s land.

When villagers came to know of his death, they searched his house for money for his cremation but didn’t find cash or valuables. There was only the passbook of a local Canara Bank branch.

“The deceased Mahesh Yadav had not done his KYC formalities for the last two years despite our regular reminders and consequently withdrawals from his account were barred as per banking rules and regulations,” said the bank manager Sanjeev Kumar.

“Mahesh Yadav had been unwell for some time,” Shahjahanpur Police Station in-charge Amarendra Kumar said.