Human remains for the Aghori rituals are gathered from the sacred but highly polluted Ganges river, where the ashes and bones of cremated dead are thrown from the Varanasi ghats. During cholera epidemics of the past, thousands of uncremated bodies were dumped into the river.
Still today, the bodies of holy men, pregnant women, people with leprosy/chicken pox, people bitten by snakes, people who have committed suicide, the poor, and children under 5 are not cremated at the ghats but weighted down in the Ganges. The bodies eventually come loose and float down the river.