MARGAO
Rising Covid deaths have begun to give sleepless nights for administrators manning the Muslim kabrastan atop the Pajifond hillock to give the dead a decent burial.
Not a day passes without a body being brought for burial at the kabrastan, which not only caters to the community from Margao and but also the entire Salcete taluka. Muslim community members have been fighting for over two decades now seeking alternate place for a spacious burial ground, since the existing kabrastan at Pajifond has almost reached a state of saturation.
The Covid pandemic has only made matters worse and aggravated the situation. The Jamia Masjid committee is grappling with the question of arranging place at the saturated kabrastan with no let up in the Covid death rate.
General secretary, Jamia Masjid, Margao and in-charge of the Pajifond Kabrastan, Atik Banducda said the committee is somehow managing the situation by exhuming the graves to make way for the dead. “The Pajifond kabrastan has been receiving bodies for bodies almost every day. Both Covid and non-Covid bodies are brought for the final rites at the kabrastan every day. Sometimes, we are called to handle five or more bodies on a single day. Just the other day, around 11 bodies were brought for burial. We had to engage labourers to dig the graves”, Atik said.
He added: “Already, we were facing space constraints at the Pajifond kabrastan. It has already reached a point of saturation. The Covid crisis has further aggravated matters for us. As an in-charge, I am left with no option than to exhume the graves even before the lapse of three years, attracting criticism from many quarters”.
Besides the space constraint, the bad condition of the road has come in the way of transporting bodies to the kabrastan. Recently, the Committee had invited PWD Minister Deepak Pauskar for an inspection of the road lead to the kabrastan with a plea to repair the same on utmost priority.
Cyclone Tauktae only further compounded the problems at the Kabrastan. A couple of trees came crashing down on the Kabrastan land during the cyclonic winds that lashed the state on Sunday. As the uprooted trees came in the way of digging graves at the burial grounds, the committee approached Margao MLA Digambar Kamat, who got a team of Margao fire brigade to cut and clear the uprooted trees.
Margao’s Muslim community had been demanding spacious space for a kabrastan in the city or the outskirts over the last two decades, but in vain.
Around a decade ago, land admeasuring 30,000 square meters was acquired at the Sonsodo hillock to build a spacious kabrastan. The project, however, failed to take off following an agitation launched by the residents of Borda and neighbouring areas.
The Kabrastan was sought to be shifted to the Khareband-Sirvodem area of Margao around three years ago. The proposal, though it had received a nod from the Manohar Parrikar government, again could not take off because of protests by the locals as well as from neighbouring villages.
