Bangalore: Dumped alive at crematorium

DHNS

Bangalore, 20 August 2010: The Sumanahalli crematorium is a familiar sight for the beggars at the Colony. For, it is they who come with the bodies each time to cremate one of their fellowmen...

Accompanied by the driver and a ward boy are five pallbearers - beggars themselves - who shift the body from their home in the Beggars Colony to the furnace.

The staff at the crematorium say the beggars make a beeline at the crematorium where others have performed the last rites and left some food behind. “They collect food and ask us for beedis and tea. We try to provide what we can,” a staffer said.

In the last six months, 286 people from the Colony have been cremated here. Not surprisingly, the bodies are often brought in an advanced state of decomposition and most of them are covered with blood soaked cloth. Ever since the crematorium opened last December, the stream of bodies from the Colony has steadily increased. “The numbers began increasing from February which made us suspicious, but they were accompanied by the death memo, signed by the Resident Medical Officer, listing them as natural deaths. So we could not really say anything,” another staffer said.

In fact, the staff noticed a discrepancy two days ago when a body was brought in with the name of Gopi aged 55, as mentioned in the death memo.

The death was listed as natural. “But the body did not look a day older than 25 years. Who is to ask about these people?” the staffer questioned.

Of the 286 people who were cremated at Sumanahalli, only 4 or 5 people ever had people claiming the bodies. For the others, there was only a name and a approximate age attached.

But the staff at the Beggars Colony are not done playing their dirty games. On Friday morning, they bought the body of Kuppa, aged 70, for cremation. Along with beggar’s body came two beggars, who were dumped at the crematorium as the driver refused to take them back. One of the beggars left, while the other one, Kuliyappa, spoke only Telugu and was too weak to even move from the spot where he was left.  Like most of the others, he had numerous open wounds sustained when he fell often at the dormitory.

Some beggars made most of the opportunity and left the place. They were found walking on Magadi road, with no place or money to hide.