UTTAR PRADESH: Cycle mechanic, based in Khirki Ali Beg locality of Ayodhya, Mohammad Sharif was happy in his small world with four sons and his wife despite earning meagre amount to make their ends meet. But everything changed in 1993 when he lost his eldest son who was murdered mysteriously in Sultanpur and couldn’t get a decent burial.
It was then Sharif decided that unclaimed bodies should be given a decent burial or cremation when there is no one else to do so. Since then he has been carrying unclaimed bodies on his cycle or a pushcart to a nearby cremation or burial ground for the final rites. In the last 27 years, Sharif ensured more than 5,500 unclaimed bodies in and around Faizabad to rest in peace with full dignity.
His exceptional endeavour took Sharif to the Ashoka Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan to be conferred with Padma Shri — country’s fourth highest civilian award —on Republic Day 2020. “My eldest son, then 22, had gone to Sultanpur for some work as he used to deal in medicines. He did not return home since then. I kept on searching for him everywhere but to no avail. After a month, the Sultanpur Police contacted and told me me that had found a decomposed body stuffed in a sack. The police showed me his shirt to identify if it was my son’s body,” says Sharif.
“Kisi ne mere laal ko maar diya tha, aur bori mein bhar diya tha” (someone had killed my son and had stuffed his body in a sack), Sharif sobs as he remembers that fateful day. His world had drowned deep in sorrow as he could not even ensure dignified adieu to his son. “I couldn’t even get his body. I identified him by the label of a tailor on his shirt,” says Sharif. “There was nothing to console me.
Then a thought crossed my mind that I could do something to save many souls from suffering like me. I resolved that I would not let anyone else go through the pain as I experienced till I am alive, and started performing last rites of unclaimed bodies,” he says. Witnessing this unusual work, many people would call him a mad man, but undeterred, he carried on with his work. Doing what seems unimaginably odd to others, this frail-looking man is often spotted picking up a corpse and taking it for last rites as per the religious faith of the deceased. He cremates the Hindus and buries the Muslims.
Over the years, the locals started acknowledging his good deeds. The 82-year-old, clad in traditional white kurta-pyjama and skull cap, is now popularly known as ‘Sharif Chacha’ and Faizabad’s most famous good Samaritan. According to him, so far he has performed the last rites of more than 3,000 Hindus and 2,500 Muslims. Sharif visits mortuaries, police stations and hospitals to inquire about abandoned, unclaimed bodies on a daily basis. If he misses a visit, authorities call him to pick the body if it is lying unclaimed for 72 hours — sometimes decapitated and decomposed.
“His steely resolve pushes him to continue with his endeavour. He cremates the Hindus according to Vedic rituals,” says Rajendra Kumar Chhabra of Faizabad. “Whenever I take a body for the last rites, I feel as if it is my son. Blood has no religion. It is same in both Hindus and Muslims. While taking a body for last rites, I feel that his/her parents, wherever they are, will get peace,” Sharif says.
‘Sharif Chacha’ has been performing last rites of unclaimed bodies in Faizabad for last 27 years. His exceptional endeavour began after he son was murdered in 1993 and couldn’t get a decent burial, reports Namita Bajpai