100 bodies found floating in tributary of Ganges

Authorities are investigating how more than 100 bodies, many of them children, ended up floating in an offshoot of the Ganges River in northern India.

Officials do not suspect a crime, and instead believe the dead were given water burials. It is Indian custom not to cremate unmarred girls, and many poor people cannot afford cremation.

The 102 bodies found floating near the village of Pariyar in the most populous state of Uttar Pradesh were too badly decomposed for autopsies or identification, District Magistrate Saumya Agarwal said.