Faridkot
Sahara Service Society(registered) Faridkot has claimed that it has cremated about 1000 unclaimed dead bodies in the past 22 years, but only about 50 of them were identified.
“Most the dead bodies, decomposed, are rushed to the Forensic Medicine department of Guru Gobind Singh medical college and hospital from the neighbouring districts such as Fazilka,Muktsar, Moga and Ferozpur besides Faridkot as the post mortems of the decomposed dead bodies are conducted at forensic department of the GGS medical college,” said Parveen Kala, the president of the Sahara society.
Kala said that they cremate about 30 to 40 unclaimed dead bodies in a year on an average, but unfortunately, little is done by the government to identify those, who are cremated as unclaimed.
As per the laid down legal procedure, the unclaimed dead bodies are brought to the GGS medical college by the concerned police for post mortem and any such unclaimed dead body is kept in mortuary for about 72 hours for identification. After this period, it is cremated with the help of Sahara society.
“As the most modern techniques are available with the medical department for conducting postmortem and with the police, including the fingerprints and other identification techniques, but little is done by the government machinery in this regard.Earlier, some samples were sent to the Phillaur laboratory, but now I have learnt that it is also closed. The whole process has turned out to be a formality,” said Parveen Kala.
He said that though most of the dead bodies come in decayed and decomposed form and are found into the water bodies such as canals, but all are not beyond identification if concerted efforts are made.
“Even there is a lot of hue and cry if some animal gets killed, but the government is totally indifferent to make all out efforts to identify those unclaimed dead bodies. At least they come from India, mainly Punjab or some neighboring states,” said Kala.
The sources said that the police had found a dead body from near Bajakhana town of the district about two weeks ago, allegedly with gun shot, but it had also to be cremated as an unclaimed because there was no identification of it too became possible.
“The fault is with our system.The concerned department is unable push timely advertisements and use other available sources of communication, may be due to technical problems or fund crunch. If the information of the dead body is immediately given extensively, then there are more chances of its identification,” said Parveen Kala.
The society cremates the unclaimed dead bodies and then keep waiting for any kin to approach it for the mortal remains for 6 months.
“We mark mortal remains by its case numbers given by the police and if nobody approach us for those for the six months, we dispose them in a religious manner and a joint prayer/last rituals are held for them all annually,” said Parveen Kala.
The society, he said, entered the service of the public welfare works in 2002.
“Apart from us in Faridkot, such unclaimed dead bodies are also cremated in other districts of the Punjab as well though the number is high in Faridkot because of the Forensic medicine department in GGS medical college Faridkot.
He demanded from the government and appealed the public to get the attention of the government drawn towards this problem.
He said that at least they belong to someone or somebody.