Bhubaneswar, Sept. 2: A driver of the 108 ambulance service reportedly forced the parents of a seven-year-old girl to get down from the vehicle after she died on her way to the hospital in Malkangiri yesterday.

This comes on the heels of the Kalahandi incident in which Daana Majhi carried the body of his wife for nearly 16km apparently due to bureaucratic apathy.

Sources said Dinabandhu Khemundu and his wife Bundru Khemundu had taken their daughter to Mathili Community Health Centre yesterday as she had been suffering from fever.

When her health deteriorated, the local doctor asked them to take her to the district headquarters hospital. She died when the ambulance was crossing Pandipani, about 20km away from the Mathili Community Health Centre.

The ambulance driver then forced the parents of the girl to get down at Nayakguda with the body. From Nayakguda, Dinabandhu and Bundru started to walk for their village Pushapalli, which was still about eight kilometres away, carrying the body of their girl on their shoulders.

People crossing the bereaved parents were moved by the sight of Dinabandhu and Bundru carrying the body of their child. They called another ambulance and finally helped them get back to their village at Pushapalli.

Reacting to the incident, Malkangiri district collector K. Sudarshan Chakravarty said: "This is really unfortunate. The ambulance driver should not have done this. We have registered a criminal case against the ambulance driver and the district health co-ordinator."

PMO seeks report

The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has sought a detailed report from the state government on the issue of Daana Majhi, the 48-year-old tribal from Kalahandi who had to carry his wife's body on his shoulders for 16km.

BJD spokesperson Pratap Deb said: "We will soon submit the report to the PMO. There is no politics involved in it. We also feel sorry for the entire incident."

Reacting to the incident, Union health minister J.P. Nada, who is on a visit to Odisha to attend the international conference on LPG, said: "The Centre is giving money under the National Rural Health Mission. The state government should utilise the money for strengthening health infrastructure."

Union minister Jual Oram said: "The state as well as the entire nation was ashamed of the incident." Union minister of state for petroleum and natural gas Dharmendra Pradhan said the state government should have taken exemplary action against the erring officials so that such an incident did not occur again.