NEW DELHI – The groom felt bad at the wedding. Days later, he was dead, and soon more than 100 guests tested positive for the coronavirus.
Now Indian officials have opened an investigation into the wedding reunion, which some experts call a superprocessor event.
The event was in mid-June and more than 300 guests attended in the city of Patna, in the north-eastern state of Bihar, according to family members who were there.
The groom, a software engineer living near New Delhi, had returned to his home state to prepare for the ceremony, and told his friends that he would be “forever remembered” as a “crown marriage.”
But a few days before the ceremony, The boyfriend started vomiting and complained of a headache, according to a relative who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared being ostracized.
The relative said that the groom’s family took him to a hospital in Patna, but that his parents insisted on continuing the wedding. He was not screened for the coronavirus, according to the relative.
But a few days after the ceremony ended, Sri Kumar Ravi, the district magistrate in Patna, said he received an anonymous call: the groom had died, possibly from Covid-19, and his parents had cremated the body.
Through an intermediary, the groom’s parents declined to comment. The Wire, an Indian media outlet, quoted the groom’s father as denying that his son had been ill before the wedding. But he said members of his family, including himself, had recently tested positive for the coronavirus.
Mr. Ravi said the bride, whose identity has not been disclosed, was negative. But she said more than 100 more guests tested positive.
He compared the wedding to “forcing his guests to commit mass suicide”, noting that there was evidence to suggest that the groom knew he was ill prior to the ceremony, but he continued without informing most of the people who attended.
No charges have yet been filed, he said.
India has struggled to limit the coronavirus, with more than half a million confirmed infections and around 18,000 deaths as of Thursday.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a national shutdown in late March, the businesses closed and millions of Indians traveled from the cities to their villages.
Many of those who returned home unknowingly spread the coronavirus to the field, prompting new outbreaks in states like Bihar that initially spared large numbers of cases.
Kai Schultz contributed reporting.
