A tribal couple, who had just lost their baby, had to walk 8 kilometres with the body up and down two hills from Vanija village of Mentada mandal in Vizianagaram district to China Konela hamlet of Ananthagiri mandal in Alluri Sitharama Raju (ASR) district, in Andhra Pradesh.
Sara Kothaiah and Sita, from the Konda Dora tribe, work at a brick-making unit at Kolluru in Guntur district, and wanted to take the body of their son, Sara Eswara Rao, to their native village at China Konela for the last rites. The one-and-a-half-year-old boy had asthma and was admitted to a hospital in Guntur, when things took a turn for the worse. He died at the hospital while undergoing treatment.
Though an ambulance was arranged to carry the body, the driver dropped them at Vanija village, about 450 km away from Guntur, refusing to go further, because there was no direct road.
