Hyderabad: Siasat’s Millat fund has arranged the burial of 11 Muslim bodies on December 11. The requests for the burials were received from various police stations in Hyderabad. The funeral prayer was offered at Darul Shifa Jama Masjid by Maulana Jafar Pasha Hisami.
On Saturday at 1.30 p.m., the funeral prayers were read for 11 bodies that were brought from the mortuaries of Gandhi Hospital and Osmania General Hospital. The bodies were later taken for burial in a graveyard in Kukatpally. The funeral was also live telecasted on Siasat’s Facebook page.
The 11 bodies would take the total number of bodies buried through the network of Siasat Daily to 5,030 over a period of 18 years. “There is no space in the graveyards in the city. So, burials are being done at Kukatpally,” said Syed Zahid Khan, a retired police official who supervises the burials of unclaimed bodies.
The funeral prayers were attended by the editor of Siasat Zahid Ali Khan, Faiz e Aam secretary Iftekhar Hussain, managing editor Zaheeruddin Ali Khan, news editor Amer Ali Khan and others.
The Siasat Daily editor Zahid Ali Khan thanked the services of the president of Kukatpally Eidgah, Shaik Abdul Aziz and the local residents for their co-operation in the burial of the bodies.
The initiative was started in 2003 when Siasat Daily’s Editor Zahid Ali Khan received a call from a Muslim police officer who informed him that Muslim bodies are often cremated along with other unclaimed bodies.
This painful disclosure prompted Khan to call up the then Andhra Pradesh DGP and the Commissioner of Police Hyderabad requesting them to hand over the unclaimed Muslim bodies to Siasat Daily for their burial.
The expenses incurred for burying an unclaimed body are between Rs 3500 to Rs. 4000. Siasat Millat Fund performs this task with the help of Hyderabadi Muslims inside and outside the country.
