Arunachal: Family carries body of 65-year-old on shoulders owing to bad road condition

Owing to the dilapidated condition of Messing village road in Arunachal Pradesh's Siang district, a family carried the dead body of a woman and crossed the rivers as it was her last wish to be buried in her hometown. 

The woman identified as Yaka Nyitan’s last wish was to be in her village when she died. But with no motorable roads to the tiny village of Messing in Arunachal Pradesh’s Siang district, her family wasn’t sure how they would fulfill it. 

Earlier this month, after doctors at a hospital in Pasighat – the headquarters of East Siang district said the 65-year-old didn’t have long to live, relatives and neighbours helped get her back home, carrying her on a bamboo stretcher for several kilometres down slippery mountain-sides and over flimsy bamboo bridges built across a gushing river.

Ojing Tasing, Mla of Pangin-boleng in Siang district of Arunachal on the phone informed that as there are only eight houses in that village named Messing and the total population is merely below 50, it does not fulfill the criteria of PMGSY guidelines to make a motorable road. However, Mla told that from other infrastructure development funds, he sanctioned partial amounts to get a motorable road near the village and make a bridge on the Siang river.