Elderly woman found dead in Shramik Special at Banda, no decision yet on testing COVID

An elderly woman was found dead inside a Shramik Special train that arrived here on Wednesday from Gujarat's Vadodara, but no decision has been taken yet on sending her sample for testing COVID-19, officials said.

Banda Railway Station Manager SK Kushwaha said the 75-year-old woman belonged to Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh and was in the train that reached here around 06:00 am.

"As many as 1,908 migrant labourers arrived in the special train from Vadodara. Once all the passengers had deboarded, the entire train was searched, and the body was found. The Banda district administration has taken the body to a mortuary," he said.

At the hospital, the doctors refused to conduct the post-mortem examination without testing her sample for coronavirus, a doctor said.

Meanwhile, Banda Chief Medical Officer Dr Santosh Kumar said, "It seems the woman had a natural death. A decisions on whether to send her sample for COVID-19 testing is yet to be made. As of now, the body has been preserved for post-mortem examination.