WEBDESK: A heartbreaking incident in Uttar Pradesh’s Hamirpur district has once again exposed India’s deeply unequal system, where political privilege takes precedence over human dignity. The ambulance was stopped by police at a barricade while a local BJP MLA’s car was allowed to pass through the same barricade.
On Saturday morning, a grieving son named Binda a daily wage labourer from Tedha village was returning home from Kanpur with the ambulance carrying his deceased mother, Shiv Devi, aged 63. But as they reached the Yamuna bridge on the Sumerpur stretch, the ambulance was stopped by police at a barricade.
The bridge had been closed earlier that day at 6:10 am for urgent repair work. At 9:30 am, Binda’s ambulance was refused entry despite pleas from the family and the medical team. Police told them that rules were rules, and no vehicle not even one carrying a dead body could be allowed.
Yet what followed made the pain even harder to bear. Just 34 minutes after the closure, at 6:44 am, a local BJP MLA’s car was reportedly allowed to pass through the same barricade, carrying the legislator’s ailing brother to Kanpur. The same rules that were strictly applied to a poor man’s ambulance, were conveniently bent for a VIP’s vehicle.
Left with no choice, Binda, along with the help of the ambulance driver and hospital staff, placed his mother’s body on a stretcher and walked nearly one kilometre across the closed bridge in the scorching June heat. Onlookers watched in silence as the family made the painful journey on foot. At the end of the bridge, he flagged down an auto-rickshaw to carry his mother’s body the rest of the way to their village for the final rites.
This is not an isolated incident. Just a week earlier, on 21 June, a senior bureaucrat’s convoy was also seen crossing the same closed bridge, again without explanation. Despite the official ban, unofficial exceptions appear to be routinely made but only for those in power.
Locals say the alternative route is unsafe, nearly unusable, and extends travel time by over two hours. For the poor, the bridge closure is not just an inconvenience it is a barrier to basic dignity. While the rules were enforced for a man in mourning, they were ignored for a politician.
Officials have claimed the closure was necessary to repair pillar number 10 of the bridge. Pedestrian movement is allowed, but vehicular traffic is officially banned. Police at the site insisted they were “managing a difficult situation” but failed to explain why the ambulance was stopped while a BJP leader’s car was allowed to pass.
The stark contrast between a VIP car that breezed through and an ambulance turned away has sparked outrage and renewed debate about India’s unequal access to justice, mobility, and compassion.
