Battle for space: In Rawalpindi, the dead have no place to rest

Competition for land heats up between housing projects and graveyards

RAWALPINDI: After nearly 1,000 years, it is but natural that a city would be pressed for space, be it the living or the dead.

That the overcrowded city of Rawalpindi has run out of space for the living, has been a major problem for the over 2.5 million inhabitants of the garrison town who now seek affordable housing in the nearby villages.

However, the city, it seems, has now run out of space for its legion of dead who now compete for land with the living.



The city’s 54 existing graveyards are already overflowing with bodies. Lack of planning and scant allocation of land for new burial grounds means that either old graveyards need to be levelled or the dead would simply have to wait for new resting place.

With no help from official quarters, grave-diggers take it upon themselves to make space, as long as the price
is right.

The price for a grave in Rawalpindi ranges from Rs3,500 to Rs5,500. Usually, administrators of graveyard turn away families by telling them that there is no space for fresh bodies. However, when families insist that their recently deceased loved one has to be buried in that graveyard next to their kin, the gravediggers dismantle the grave of a person whose relatives have not visited since long and prepare a new one in its place.

However, not everyone agrees to this method, especially the families of the dead whose grave was being levelled.



To counter this, the Dhok Ilahi Baksh Jadeed graveyard has put up a fatwa which says old graves can be demolished to create space for new ones.

Another notice in the graveyard warns relatives that the responsibility of graves is their own.

Some graveyards in the city are so old that they have graves from 1800s. However, most of the older graveyards in the garrison town are safe because graves were built using concrete or stone.

But other, newer graveyards in city are facing increasing threats from people who have built houses encroaching on graveyards. Some graveyards, where security is lax, drug users and criminals make them their dens.

(TRNSLATION BY ARSHAD SHAHEEN)

Published in The Express Tribune, November 28^th, 2016.