Author: Shahnaz Parveen
Publication: The Daily Star
Date: July 24, 2010
URL: http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=147991
Much of the three cremation grounds grabbed
The Hindus living in Dhaka city are facing
a severe shortage of cremation grounds due to wholesale encroachment over
the years.
The cremation grounds are also weighed down
with numerous problems such as water shortage, worn out building, lack of
sitting arrangement and toilet, coupled with the drug peddlers gathering after
dusk.
Only one cremation ground has been established
since independence taking the number to just three for the city's growing
number of Hindus. No statistics are available on the Hindu population in the
capital, but the community leaders claim it to be around 20 percent of the
city's total population of over one crore.
According to Hindu religious custom, bodies
of adults are usually cremated while the bodies of children under eight are
buried. However, some of the Hindu castes bury the deceased, both young and
adult, instead of cremating. Baishnobs, for example, are buried.
Established over a hundred years back, the
two cremation grounds located in Postogola and Lalbagh are maintained by the
Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) while the one established in Sabujbag some 10
years ago is maintained by Sabujbagh Borodeshwari Kali Mandir.
Postogola Mahasmashan, recognised as the national
cremation ground, was set up on some 180 kathas of land. It has now been reduced
to only 40 kathas as some re-rolling mills and iron sheet cutting factories
have encroached a large portion of the land, said the general secretary of
Postogola Jatiya Mahasmashan Committee Babul Das.
DCC Mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka knows about
the encroachment problem. Talking to The Daily Star, he said DCC also recovered
parts of the encroached land during the last caretaker government's tenure.
"A committee was also formed with Major
General (retd) CR Dutta as the convenor to recover the rest of the encroached
land. But the committee didn't continue its work," he added.
The one in Lalbagh was originally established
on 100 kathas of land but now only half of it remains because of gradual encroachment
over the years.
Sabujbag ground also faces similar problem
with its burial ground. However, in general, it is in a better condition in
terms of other facilities, Hindus say.
The burial ground at Postogola has capacity
to bury only 70 bodies. Due to the space constraints, graves are replaced
within three months and the authority is no longer permitting bodies of adults
to be buried there.
"The main problem is to bury children
as every single inch of the burial ground has already been used," said
Babul Das.
Mongol Ghosh, secretary general of Lalbagh
Smashan Unnayan Committee, gives a grimmer picture. "The situation in
Lalbagh is so depressing that shovelling up to just one foot brings out bones
of previously buried children," he said.
To add to the sufferings of the Hindus, the
cremation grounds are too far away for many residents across the city's newly
developed residential areas.
"This grave problem has been overlooked
in the city plan," said Kajal Debnath, a presidium member of Bangladesh
Hindu Buddha Christian Oikya Parishad.
Community leaders said they have time and
again raised the issues like establishment of new burial grounds, modernisation
of funeral pyre with gas furnace and ensuring hygiene of the people living
around the cremation grounds to the authority but did not receive much response.
Khoka, the city mayor, however says the Hindus
never brought it to him that the issue of burial ground is so severe.
He also said an electric incinerator worth
Tk 3 crore was installed in Postogola to modernise it but is now lying idle
because it is not cost effective for the users.
The DCC is now thinking of a gas burner, he
said.
