YEARS ago, when Kanti Lakra converted from Hinduism to Christianity and adopted the surname Kerketta, little must her family have realized that the consequences would follow her to the grave.
Kanti’s body lay at her home in Kesura village in Hazaribag for more than 36 hours as first a Hindu crematorium and then four churches refused her husband to perform the last rites. The 60-year old had died of kidney failure on August 12 at the Hazaribag sadar hospital.
DSP Ratneshwar Thakur said Kanti’s husband, Shiv Prakash Ram, first decided to bury the body as per Christian tradition at the village burning ghat because there was no cemetery there. However, the villagers stopped him from digging a grave. The DSP said they told Ram that they could only allow a Hindu funeral at the ghat and advised him to cremate his wife as he was the only Christian in the village.
“We can’t allow burial of a body in the burning ghat although Ram could have carried out the last rites as per Hindu norms,” said Balram Mahato, the village head.
Ram then decided to bury her body in his own orchard, but this, too, was opposed by Hindus. “The villagers refused to let Ram use his residential plot as a graveyard because the house has an old Shiva temple,” a police source said.
Ram finally approached the cops and met officer Arvind Kumar Singh and a police team visited the village to help him find a suitable space for the grave. But the team failed to convince the villagers and the police had to approach higher authorities in the district for a solution.
Finally, DSP Thakur and a magistrate were sent to the village as the body required to be disposed at the earliest. They asked four churches, Church of North India, Gossner Evangelical Lutheran Church, Society Of God and All God Church, in Hazaribag and adjoining areas for space in any of their cemeteries, but all four disallowed burial of a person who had converted to Christianity.
“The family adopted Christianity under CNI and we cannot allow him to use our graveyard for burial of his wife,” said Mukund Barla, pastor of GEL Church. When Ram approached CNI, authorities there refused as well saying she belonged to a different village.
After 36 hours, the administration found a plot on a government land far from the Kesura burning ghat. Thakur said the body was buried by Christian tradition on Wednesday amid strong police presence. Times of India
