Uttar Pradesh Police arrested seven people who used to steal clothes from the dead from burial grounds and crematoria in Baghpat district of the state.
According to an NDTV report, the arrested accused used to steal clothes that used to cover the dead apart from sarees, bedsheets and other clothes from the bodies of the deceased. They would then wash and iron the clothes and sell them. Some of the cloth merchants in the area would buy stolen clothes from these men, according to police.
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"Seven people have been arrested. During interrogation it was revealed that they used to steal bedsheets, sarees, clothes of the dead. Among the items recovered are: 520 bedsheets, 127 kurtas, 52 white sarees and other articles of clothing," NDTV quoted a police official as saying.
The police official said three of the seven accused belong to the same family. The accused have been stealing clothes from the dead for the past several years, the official added.
COVID-19 has so far claimed 15,170 lives in Uttar Pradesh. On Saturday, as many as 298 deaths were reported from the state.
Meanwhile, even as the state continues to witness a large number of COVID-19 cases, the government has extended the statewide coronavirus lockdown ending on Monday by a week. The "corona curfew" was earlier scheduled to end at 7 am on May 10.
—With PTI inputs