No land for Hindu burial ground in Malda

Statesman News Service

MALDA, Dec. 9: The English Bazaar Municipality (EBM) has planned to build a separate burial grounds for Hindus at Bochatak, on the bank of the river Mahananda, but has been facing difficulties in earmarking even an acre of land for the purpose because of encroachments.

Local Hindus have not been able to bury bodies of children, who had died in the district hospital in past three years, due to lack of protected place for this purpose in the town. There are several burial grounds for Muslims in Malda town and earlier the Hindu people used to bury bodies of their kids there.

But now, boundary walls have been constructed around such burial grounds and people have been barred from burying bodies of their children without prior permission from local authorities. When denied permission, people are often compelled to bury the bodied in unprotected burial grounds. Often animals have been found gnawing at the bodies.

After having faced such a problem a woman from the Malda town had once written a letter to the Union human resources development department a year-and-a-half ago. The department had instructed the English Bazaar Municipality to take necessary steps to resolve the crisis but nothing could be done.

The woman had narrated her bitter experiences about the problem of cremating bodies of Hindus babies and how one of the bodies buried in the unprotected ground was pulled out by foxes at night and dogs were seen feasting on bodies on the roads during the day.

Last Sunday a newspaper had published a report on how dogs were eating such a body on a road at Baluchar on the bank of Mahananda.

Muhammad Ataullah, one of the members of the minority development cell in Malda, said: “A separate burial ground for Hindus is absolutely necessary here. Earlier they did not face any problem but at present it is really a crisis. When the care taker of a burial ground for Muslims allegedly refused somebody, the family had to bury the body secretly in near by unprotected area. Animals were found eating the decomposed body later.”

The vice-chairman of the English Bazaar Municipality, Mr Dulal Sarkar, said: “We have planned to build a separate burial ground at Bochatak, a place of cremation for Hindus, but we need to get a free plot of land at Bochatak on the bank of the Mahananda.”

Mr Amlan Bhaduri, councilor of the English Bazaar Municipality, said: “I had visited Bochatak to get at least 10 cotta land there but all lands including the plot owned by the irrigation department had been encroached. Though a separate burial ground is imperative but there is no such required land for this purpose”.

"Some local people have also constructed a temple called Trinath and encroached the place of cremation for Hindus there,” he said.