Jeddah: In a tragic mistaken identity, the bodies of two NRIs who died in Saudi Arabia got interchanged due to an alleged mistake that resulted in the wrong cremation of an Uttar Pradesh man in Kerala.
The bereaved family in Uttar Pradesh was not able to have a glimpse of their loved one as it went to Kerala and cremated there while Kerala’s mourning family performed cremation twice for the same person within three days.
The death and even deprivation of the last glimpse of the beloved one can only be described as a tragedy.
And the worst aspect of the whole situation is that it was a tragedy that could have been avoided.
While one of the deceased was Muslim, the other was Hindu. Before the lapse could be detected, the body of the Muslim man had already been cremated as per Hindu customs.
The deceased were identified as 46-year-old Shaji Rajan from Alappuzha district of Kerala, and Javed Ahmed Idrishi, 45, who was from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. While Rajan had committed suicide in Al Ahsa town some two and half months ago and Idrishi died at a hospital in Dammam on September 25.
The body of Rajan was repatriated to the grieving family from Dammam via Colombo to Tiruvananthapuram in Kerala through Air Lanka while Javed’s body was repatriated to Varanasi via New Delhi from Dammam through IndiGo carrier.
Instead of Rajan, Javed’s body was sent to Tiruvananthapuram. The family of Rajan assumed that it belonged to their loved one and wanted to cremate the unwrapping face since its months old. However, his daughter has threatened to commit suicide if not shown the face of her father then only they opened and she insisted that it was not her father yet mourning family hastily cremated the body owing to unpleasant odour that emitting from the corpse, said family sources.
At the other end, Mustaqim Ashrafi, father-in-law of late Idrishi was in shock after discovering the discrepancies in the name written on the wooden casket coffin and tagged airway bill. He immediately altered his relatives in Saudi Arabia, in turn they contacted Nass Vokkam Shoukat, noted community social worker in Dammam to inform about the lapse and also authentication of the body.
“There is are no words left to describe our eternal agony” Ashrafi told this correspondent over the phone from Uttar Pradesh.
With the help of the Embassy, Nass has contacted Uttar Pradesh Police and local authorities to return the body to Kollam in Kerala, which is 2500 KM away.
“The unfortunate and tragic error would have been avoided if the grieving family in Kerala also noticed the airway bill tag same as in Uttar Pradesh”, said a source.
The names and passport numbers of deceased were clearly mentioned on the top of caskets, however, attaching airway waybill tags vice versa on it could be probable reason for swapping, according to sources.
| Posted by Neha Khan | 
