TIRUCHY: For decades, residents of Moolakadu village in Kombai panchayat, near Thuraiyur, Tiruchy, have been burying the deceased in fields or their own private lands due to the lack of a designated graveyard.
The plight of residents with no land to claim as theirs have been worse as they were left with little to no choice but walk around eight kilometres to bury the deceased at the electric crematorium in Thuraiyur. The village of Moolakadu comprises around 500 residents in 90 households.
The residents say they used to make use of a land spanning two acres to bury the deceased around two decades ago. Later, the government claimed ownership to the land, forcing the residents to fall back on their private lands.
The authorities concerned failed to provide us with an alternative parcel of land, the residents rued. A Vasantha, a resident of Moolakadu, said they dropped the practice of performing the last rites of their dear ones on their own fields as the residents started replenishing the land parcels for agricultural purposes.
Selvaganapathy, another resident, said repeated protests and requests from their end reaped no benefits, "as the government paid no heed to our demands for a burial ground."
An official of the district administration said they are yet to send a proposal to the district collectorate regarding the odds of revitalising the land parcel which was previously harnessed as a burial ground. "If an order is issued to establish a graveyard in the land, all we have to do is to make amendments to the land documents," the official said.