CHENNAI: If the grim reaper called on 20-year-old Ranjit Murah out of the blue on a Chennai road, the Assamese Christian was made to wait in morgues for about a week till he got a grave to rest in peace. First, the post mortem was delayed by a few days due to government rules and then the local Church authorities were not prepared to provide space in their cemeteries for an ‘outsider’. Ranjit, who was working in the Sri Ramachandra Medical College cafeteria here, had come out during a break to charge his mobile phone when a bus driver developed convulsions and lost control of the vehicle, leading to the bus ploughing through some people on August 30. Ranjit was one of the two killed in the accident.The body, which was kept at the Kilpauk Medical College hospital mortuary till September 3 as Ranjit’s brother had to come down from Assam to give his consent for post mortem, was shifted to the Ramachandra medical college hospital morgue on September 4. That was when the search for a cemetery began. Paul, who runs an NGO called Little Drops that helps in burying the destitute, said: “When I got a call from the hospital, I approached the CSI’s St Thomas Mount Cemetery. I was told they don’t have any space and the cemetery was only meant for their members. Then I tried through my contacts t approach a few Catholic churches and other churches like the Assemblies of God and Evangelical Church of India and got the same answer,” Paul told Express.“Despite my telling them that it was an extraordinary situation as the dead person is the son of poor widow and that the family does not have the means to take the body back to Assam, besides pointing out he died about a week earlier, nobody could help.” At last, Paul managed to get a letter from Fr Anthony Raj of St Joseph’s Church in Porur certifying that Ranjit was a Christian and organised the funeral on September 5 at the Chennai Corporation Christian burial ground, off St Mary’s Road, which is managed by the Chennai Corporation along with the CSI and Catholic Dioceses. When enquired about the denial of space for an outsider, Augustine, Superintendent of the St Thomas Mount Garrison Cemetery said: “We have clear instructions from the Bishop only to accommodate members of the six churches who are attached to this cemetery as we are running short of space.”Reacting to the incident, Fr Bosco, Property in Charge of Madras-Mylapore Diocese of the Catholic church, under whose control falls all the cemeteries said: “If this had been bought to the attention of the Bishop we would have definitely made arrangements.”“A few years ago we had an incident where police had to dig the graves, when we accommodated an outsider. After that strict instructions were given to the cemetery boards to allow only members. Space is also a constraint.”“Anyway, I will represent this to the Archbishop and we will send instructions to all the cemetery boards that in an extraordinary situation like this, it should be immediately referred to the attention of the Bishop,” he said.Rev Deva Puthiran, secretary, CSI diocese of Madras, said, “We will represent this matter in the diocese committee meeting and take a favourable decision to ensure that no such incident recurs.”
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