The Uttar Pradesh government has ordered an inquiry after a 12-year-old boy died on his father's shoulders in Kanpur after doctors allegedly delayed treating him on Friday. Sunil Kumar said his son Ansh could have been saved if doctors at the government-run Hallet Hospital had intervened when he first took him there. State Health Minister Ravidas Mehrotra said, "Whoever is guilty will not be spared."

Kumar told NDTV that doctors at the emergency ward did not examine the child and that he was made to wait half-an-hour before being asked to take his son to the children's ward, about 200 metres away. He also alleged that hospital authorities denied him a stretcher and he was thus forced to carry his son. He told the Hindustan Times, “I begged doctors at the emergency ward to examine my son and admit him. It is negligence on the part of the Hallet Hospital. They did not provide treatment to my son.”

His son was declared brought dead at the children's ward. The class 6 student was suffering from high fever for a couple of days and was being treated at a local clinic. According to Hindustan Times, Kumar got no help from the hospital and carried his dead son home.

The hospital authorities, however, claimed that the boy was dead long before his father brought him to their emergency ward. Chief Medical Officer Dr RC Gupta said, "We admitted him. We could tell from his condition that he died two to three hours before being brought in."

About a week ago, a man walked down 10 km carrying his wife's body in Odisha after he was denied a hearse to take her home. On Thursday, another man in Balasore district of Odisha had to break a corpse at the hip and carry it in a sling because of the lack of an ambulance.