Heirless bodies denied burial spaces

In the absence of a public cemetery, unclaimed bodies are laid to rest in a single charity graveyard

LAHORE:

Where soaring inflation and political instability have rendered peace elusive for the living citizens, the deceased without an heir fail to attain it even after death, as they await endlessly for their final resting abode.

Despite the provincial government declaring the availability of burial spaces for unidentified persons, no dedicated public cemetery exists for laying to rest the remains of heirless persons in the provincial capital, due to which hundreds of unclaimed bodies are being buried in a privately owned, acre wide piece of land, in the Sugyan area, under the supervision of the Edhi foundation, a local non-governmental organisation (NGO), and the police.

“When the police find an heirless body, they transport it from the morgue to the cemetery run by the Edhi foundation, where a local NGO performs the funeral prayers,” revealed a source from the Edhi Foundation, who added that no government provided burial space exists for laying to rest heirless person.

Malik Mubeen, a representative of the local NGO felt that the desecration of unclaimed dead bodies in Multan’s Nishtar Hospital motivated them to prevent the same from happening in Lahore in the absence of a dedicated public cemetery for heirless deceased. “So far we have buried 283 unclaimed bodies after performing their burial rites in accordance with Islamic law,” he informed.

According to a spokesperson from the Edhi Foundation hundreds of unclaimed bodies are found by the police across Lahore every year, with 335 found during the current year and 645 found in the preceding but none of them are accommodated by the government.

“We oversee the legal documentation and then turn over the deceased to the Edhi Foundation. There is not much else we can do as it is the government’s duty to provide burial grounds for unclaimed bodies,” said a spokesperson for the Lahore Police.

Sources from the Edhi foundation claim that the remains of the heirless person were previously buried at the Miani Sahib cemetery until the local administration decided to uproot them. “Later we were informed that the unclaimed bodies would now be buried in the Punjab Shehr-e-Khamoshan Authority but they have no such facility either,” said the source.

In an attempt to obtain additional information on the matter, The Express Tribune tried contacting officials at the Shehr-e-Khamoshan Authority alongside Deputy Commissioner Lahore Rafia Haider, but the efforts were in vain since neither of them responded to the calls.

Speaking to The Express Tribune on the paucity of burial spaces for unclaimed bodies, Salman Sufi, Head of the Prime Minister’s Strategic Reforms said, ”I will ask the Shehr-e-Khamoshan Authority to investigate the current situation and designate an appropriate location for the burial of heirless persons soon.”

Published in The Express Tribune, August 1^st, 2023.