Scavengers, eating the flesh of the dead, perhaps play a more constructive role for the society than the civic body of the capital city. For, these animals at least care for making the environment clean unlike Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) that hardly offers any help to denizens even when they are dead.
What comes as nightmare for the kith and kin of the deceased at the only ‘organised’ cremation centre - Harmu Mukti Dham - is the demand of bribe by RMC’s employee for furnishing a Death Report and the querulous cremators who behave with the aggrieved souls in the most indecent ways to grab ‘illegal’ money for putting the dead person to fire.
Perhaps the most sacred work of establishment by the Marwari Brahmin Samaj of the city — the Mukti Dham —appears to be in the clutch of demons of the society, who not only indulge in corrupt practices during the cremation but also sometimes misbehave with the mourning relatives.
The miseries of the kin of a dead person begin with the search for a mortuary van to take the body to the Mukti Dham. And, ironically, the civic body taking ‘care’ of over 10 lakh residents of the city does not even have a single mortuary van.
One has to arrange it from social groups or private parties spending more than twice the amount of money it should genuinely cost in the process.
“As per norms of the Samaj one has to pay Rs 1800 for getting logs for the funeral pyre and no extra money is charged by the Samaj. But, when one arrives the cremation site one has to encounter goons in the guise of cremators there. Their demand varies between Rs 3,000 and Rs 10,000 for cremating the body. And, at times the bargaining turns into heated argument, which results in offensive language from the cremators sides,” said Ranjan Singh, who have had such harrowing experience recently.
“I had to pay Rs 4000 to the local cremators for my mother’s cremation and that too when I had paid the cost of woods and the facilities. It’s completely inhumane to blackmail grieving people at the cremation site,” said SS Harsh, who had cremated his mother at the Mukti Dham on April 28.
When asked about such practices at the Mukti Dham president of the Marwari Brahman Samaj Bhagchand Poddar said, “In our society we do everything ourselves. We arrange the pyre for the dead body and put the extra logs on the body if needed. In this condition we don’t seek the help of anyone and we don’t need to pay to anyone.”