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Corona: How to bury the dead? No grave-diggers or coffins available in Lucknow
LUCKNOW Whatever good may come out of the ongoing lockdown, there are complications associated with it, too, that the Christian community in Lucknow is just waking
LUCKNOW Whatever good may come out of the ongoing lockdown, there are complications associated with it, too, that the Christian community in Lucknow is just waking up to. Their problem is soon going to be how to bury their dead.
Unlike other communities, where those taking care of the last rites of the departed are present on site, the main workers of the two major cemeteries of the state capital – Nishatganj and Cantonment – reside outside the city.
Grave-digger Anwar commutes daily from Barabanki, while the Nishatganj cemetery manager, Ved Prakash, belongs to Rahimabad on Lucknow’s outskirts. Naturally, with the ensuing lockdown, the two unable to enter the city, slowly but surely grinding burial work to a standstill.
Workers like Nishatganj cemetery guard Edwin Anthony, who also doubles up as a worker and helper around the cemetery, resides near the Lucknow Publishing House on Cantonment Road. Ever since the ‘janta curfew’ and now with the nation-wide lockdown enforced, the police have stopped him daily from getting to the cemetery.
Same is true of the Christian Burial Board secretary JJ Joseph, who resides on the Lucknow Christian College campus.
“Even on Thursday evening (March 26), the hearse (the vehicle in which the dead body is brought from the house/hospital to the graveyard) driver Mohd Ahmed was stopped by police when he was going to get a body for burial. Only after many frantic phone calls to administrative officials and wasting more than two hours, he was allowed to pass,” said Joseph.
And that is the lesser of the problems, for if the administration issues the workers passes, they would be able to carry out their share of work.
The main problem is that with all locked and barred, material needed to carry out a burial is nearly over. The maurang (coarse sand), cement and bricks needed to fortify a grave, is in short supply, and with shops under lockdown, there’s no way stocks can be replenished.
Same is the case with the plywood used for making coffins. Joseph said, “We have just about enough wood for two or three coffins. Once we have used that I don’t know where we will get the wood to make coffins.”
And then he rattles off numbers to put things in perspective. “On an average, we take care of 23 to 25 burials at the two cemeteries per month. The King George’s Medical University (KGMU) takes two or three coffins every month from us for patients’ next of kin who come from outside the town.
“The Command Hospital takes anywhere between five and 10 coffins a month. We desperately need wood for 35-40 coffins but we don’t know where and how to get it.
“We are running low even on the cloth stock used to line the coffin with.”
While Joseph has written to Lucknow police commissioner Sujeet Pandey and to ADG (Vigilance) Bhanu Pratap Singh, seeking their intervention in the matter of cemetery workers being stopped by law enforcers, the main problem remains the depleting stocks of material.
“If there are a couple of deaths, or the KGMU or the Army comes asking for a few coffins, I don’t know what will happen then.”
Additional district magistrate (administration) Vaibhav Mishra said, “Now that the problem has been brought to our notice, we will surely help. Till now, we were busy buttressing the public distribution system, medicines in stores, hospitals, etc. Now, this problem will also be solved.”
