Last rites: SRU to ensure final resting place for all

Model burial places divided into graveyards, cemeteries and crematoriums planned for all 36 districts

LAHORE: The Chief Minister’s Strategic Reforms Unit (SRU) plans to facilitate the last rites of non-Muslims by allocating separate areas in model graveyards for cremations or burials.

Promulgated on April 11, 2017, this is the first legislation to recognise the need for effective and inclusive citizen facilitation at graveyards, claimed SRU Director General Salman Sufi. The unit’s Shehr-e-Khamoshan Graveyard Authority will be tasked with establishing, managing and regulating model cemeteries/graveyards or crematoriums to cater to non-Muslims.

The authority will provide cemetery, funeral, crematory and transfer services through the model graveyards in all 36 districts of Punjab. These locations will include comprehensive and customised mortuary, body bathing, last rites, burial and hearse services. Authorities organising these facilities may be contacted through a toll-free number.

The Punjab government has introduced inclusive burial spaces for citizens of all faiths, emphasising institutions must strive to break religious and cultural barriers.

To further protect the rights of citizens, the administration also introduced comprehensive penalties and prohibitions in the Shehr-e-Khamoshan Authority Ordinance. Through these provisions, fines are imposed on harming or desecrating the body of anyone buried at a cemetery. Violators may be charged with a penalty ranging from six months to seven years in prison and a fine between Rs5,000 and Rs50,000.

There are further penalties for persons who willfully damage, encroach upon or build any unauthorised structure in any part of a cemetery. Such individuals are punishable with up to six months in prison and a fine from Rs5,000 to Rs50,000.

Further penalties are imposed on people carrying out business/commercial activity at Shehr-e-Khamoshan model cemeteries/graveyards. There are also fines for not burying/cremating bodies in the prescribed manner. An enforcement wing will be placed at the Shehr-e-Khamoshan Authority structure — complete with a team of inspectors — and it will prevent encroachments or property disputes.

When asked, Mulsim religious scholar, Ziaul-Haq Naqashbandi told The Express Tribune that Sharia Law does not allow a joint graveyard for Muslims and non-Muslims. At the same time, Maulana Raghib Naeemi, another scholar, said the graveyards for Muslims and non-Muslims must be separated by walled boundaries.

Christian religious Naseer John appreciated the step, saying some tragic incidents had occurred in the past when the graves of non-Muslims were desecrated in different parts of the country. He appreciated that establishment of an inclusive burial ground as a positive step from the religious majority. He was of the firm belief that’s such a step would help bring people together and restore religious harmony.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 4^th, 2017.