Good samaritans give dignified funerals

MOHAMMAD Khalid’s life changed for ever 20 years ago when he saw a dead woman on the side of a road.

Khalid, who runs a pathology centre in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, could not see the decomposed corpse lying on the street. He took the body in a kart to a crematorium and gave it a dignified funeral.

This incident made him a good samaritan of unclaimed bodies, and since then he has made it his life’s mission to dispose of unclaimed bodies.

Khalid’s friend Tapas Chakraborty, from St Columbus College in Hazaribagh, also joined his campaign.

Since then, the duo have cremated more than 6 000 corpses, thus becoming a “friend of the dead”.

During the pandemic, when people shunned their near and dear ones, the Khalid-tapas duo performed the last rites of about 500 bodies, risking their own lives. The duo are now known in Jharkhand as the “messiah of unclaimed bodies”.

In 2010, the mortuary at RIMS,

Jharkhand’s largest hospital, was filled with unclaimed bodies, which had started decomposing and the stench became unbearable.

Khalid and Tapas undertook the onerous task of a mass funeral.

They together cremated about 150 bodies. Since then, both of them continue to handle the last rites of the unclaimed.

During the first and the second Covid wave, the duo took up the challenge and turned messiah for the dead. Khalid single-handedly performed the last rites of 96 people who died of Covid, in 15 days.

The administration and local donors have now provided them with vehicles, which facilitate the transportation of bodies to the crematorium.

Chakraborty has now retired from college and Khalid has handed over the work of his pathology centre to family members.

They spend all their time cremating the dead bodies and providing bread to the needy. |