Muslims to run out of burial sites in Delhi in a year: Report

Muslims will find it hard to bury their dead in the national capital in a year from now, since there will be no space left in the graveyard which are already out of free space, says a report compiled by the Delhi Minority Commission.

Released by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday, the report said there are approximately 13,000 Muslim funerals in a year on average and there is a space for only 29,370 in Delhi, as per their data collected in 2017.

"This means that at the present pace, there will be no space left after only one year from now (2018) unless some remedial strategies are adopted," said the report.

As one of its "remedial strategies", the Commission suggested using "'kaccha' graves that allow re-burial in the same space after a few years" and freeing land from encroachers for building of new graveyards.

There are 704 Muslim graveyards in the national capital, as per the report.

"Out of these existing graveyards, only 131 are functioning now and even out of these, a total of 16 graveyards are under litigation and therefore they are not functioning.

"These also include 43 graveyards which have been encroached upon by various entities. Most graveyards are small, measuring 10 bighas or less; 46 per cent have five bighas or less," it read.

--IANS

vn/nir