00:00The Siparia Regional Corporation has launched an investigation into how three goat heads
00:05and a chicken were placed on a man's pyre at the Mosquito Creek cremation site.
00:11Mayor Dudnat Meru says the incident was both disrespectful and distressing.
00:16We don't have a watchman there overnight.
00:20We monitor it during the day, during the course of the funeral and so on.
00:24An investigation will have to be launched by the municipal police to ascertain what
00:30went on there and a report will come to the council.
00:33The desecration was noted when relatives visited the site the day after the cremation as is
00:38customary to retrieve the ashes for its emission into the sea.
00:43Mr. Meru assures the report will be made public and in the meantime discussions are offered
00:49as to how to better secure the site.
00:52We will have to take some measures with respect to putting additional security on that cremation
00:58site at night but the cost is a little problem because as you know we are short on funds.
01:05We did not receive all the funding that we requested and we were cut severely.
01:12He explains officers are on site during cremations to maintain law and order, manage crowds and
01:18help with parking.
01:19In the future, the mayor says securing the site infrastructurally would have to be considered.
01:24Meanwhile, Secretary General of the Snart and Tarma, Mahasabha Vijay Maharaj says that
01:29move will be ideal but there comes a question.
01:32Security, who's going to pay for it?
01:35Would the regional corporation pay for it because it's them and municipal police?
01:42Who pays for that?
01:43That is the thing.
01:45Would the corporation pay for it under these trying economic circumstances?
01:50It's the first time he has seen something of this nature.
01:53This is a desecration of Sanatanist Hindu funeral rites, right, from what I saw and
02:00what pictures I have seen.
02:02He questions whether this was done because of a family dispute or if it is connected
02:07to underlying motives.
02:09Is there a move afoot to close down open-air pyre cremation and go to the crematorium?
02:17One thing Mr. Maharaj says is certain.
02:20Obvious is that this is obviously a hate crime that has accelerated itself during this state
02:27of emergency.
02:28It has focused itself primarily on the Hindu community but other communities have suffered.
02:36The Muslims, my colleagues are the Muslims, they had some problems.
02:40The family will now have to perform renewed rites as the ashes would be viewed as contaminated.
02:46They would have to perform some new rites before they dispose of the, I would have liked
02:52to think that they did it, before they dispose of the ashes into the gulf, you know, move
02:59the animal remnants away and perform the new rites.
03:03The emission of ashes into a sacred body of water is called asti visarjan.
03:09Hindus believe this final step is deeply spiritual as it releases the soul and returns the body
03:16to the elements.
03:17If laid in a sacred body of water, the soul, Hindus believe, gain moksha or liberation
03:24and thereby escape the cycle of rebirth.
03:27The Sanatan Dharma Mahasabha will now regroup, Mr. Maharaj says, and determine if ashes can
03:33be collected on the same day of the cremation to avoid any repeat of the incident.
03:39Arvishi Tiwari, Rupnarayan, TV6 News.
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