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Body of Hindu man, buried after villagers refused help with cremation, exhumed
Darrang deputy commissioner Pranab Kumar Sarmah said the man will be cremated according to Hindu rituals in line with the wishes of his family
GUWAHATI: Officials in central Assam’s Darrang district on Friday exhumed the body of a Hindu man who was buried by his family after fellow villagers refused to touch his body because he married outside his caste three decades ago.
Darrang deputy commissioner Pranab Kumar Sarmah said the man will be cremated according to Hindu rituals in line with the wishes of his family.
The family of Atul Sarma, a Brahmin, was excommunicated by residents of Ganaksuba village in Mangaldai sub-division 27 years ago for marrying Pranita Devi, a member of the Koch community listed among the state’s other backward classes (OBC).
“After my husband died on Wednesday night, I informed fellow villagers the next morning. But they said that they won’t touch his body or take part in his cremation. Villagers don’t want to touch my husband, despite him being a Brahmin, because I am Koch,” Pranita Devi told reporters on Thursday.
“With no help offered by villagers, one of my husband’s brothers took the body to the bank of a nearby river and buried it. It pains me that my husband was buried and not cremated,” she added.
Since his marriage, Atul Sarma, who was in his 60s, and his entire family were excommunicated by the village and barred from participating in social and religious activities.
Deputy commissioner Sarmah said after the district administration came to know about the incident, “we instructed that the body of the deceased should be dug out and the cremation performed as per Hindu rituals”.
Sarma’s body was exhumed on Friday afternoon and taken to Mangaldai, the district headquarters for post-mortem following which it will be cremated at the public crematorium.
“We have picked up a person named Jadab Sarma, a village elderly from Ganaksuba, who reportedly asked the deceased’s family to bury the dead body, for questioning. No one has registered any FIR yet, there’s no investigation from our side,” added Darrang superintendent of police (SP) Raj Mohan Ray.
