PANAJI: Director of Municipal Administration (DMA) Raju Gawas, on Thursday, restored the Margao Municipal Council (MMC)’s order which states that the religious bodies should provide space for burial and cremation for persons professing any faith.
It shall be recalled that the MMC in its order dated September 16 earlier this year had ordered that the Vicar (parish priest) of the St Sebastian Church and the Vicar of Holy Spirit Church, president of Hindu Mathagramastha Sabha, Margao and president of the Sunni Jamat Ul Muslameen, Margao should make necessary arrangement either by demarcating some portion of their existing burial or cremation ground for body of any person professing any faith or arrange for a separate common burial or cremation ground within their cemetery or crematorium.
However, on October 1, church of Aquem in Margao witnessed chaos after four unknown persons including a female asked the grave digger to dig a grave in order to bury an unidentified body in the cemetery, which belongs to the Aquem parish.
The chaos led to an outburst of religious sentiments and the MMC on October 3 issued an order withdrawing the earlier order of September, which demanded to provide for place at the burial and cremation.
Challenging the October order of the MMC, Vincent Andrade had filed a complaint before the DMA, stating that the withdrawal of the order will inconvenience and deprive people who do not follow any particular religion or faith from the opportunity of the final rites being carried out respectfully.
The DMA in its order on Thursday has suspended the October 3 order of the MMC and restored the September 16 order until the case is disposed of.
The DMA has asked the MMC to inform all the burial ground managements and crematorium about the orders immediately, and fixed the next hearing of the case for December 13.