Grave disgrace to the dead
It’s no more RIP, it’s ‘rest in rubbish’ at the Lakshmipuram cemetery.
Bangalore: Plastic bags and other garbage, shrivelled garlands, broken liquor bottles and pots, overgrown weeds…That is not a description of a garbage dump or derelict plot, but of the Lakshmipuram cemetery in Indiranagar and the Kalpalli crematorium in Jeevanahalli.
The appalling state of the last resting place of their loved ones is what greets relatives who visit these places on death anniversaries or other occasions.
In the course of writing this report Deccan Chronicle found that bachelor parties were being celebrated inside the premises of the Lakshmipuram cemetery. The celebrations go on late into the night with loud music, drinking, dancing and smoking weed. The rubbish left over from the party just lies around in the cemetery.
The cemetery is maintained by the civic body, but the maintenance is minimal. “Once a year in February, plants are trimmed for the Shivarathri puja and that too not by the BBMP authorities, but by the visitors who do it at their own cost,” says Nagaraj, a contract worker at the cemetery who lives in the neighbourhood.
According to people who live in the neighbourhood, the police do not patrol inside the cemetery premises, and this has made it a secure den for illegal activities. The overgrown plants and the filth strewn around invite stray dogs to wander at will. Rats and snakes abound which enter premises neighbouring the cememtery.
The 48-acre Lakshmipuram cemetery and the much bigger Kalpalli crematorium are a disgrace and a blot on the BBMP. Showing disrespect to the dead is not part of our culture, yet this is exactly what is happening here.
A BBMP contract worker who did not want to be named told Deccan Chronicle, “We don’t get paid promptly for the work we do clearing garbage and sweeping city roads. Do you really think that they will pay us for cleaning up the burial ground? We don’t think so.”
Since it is citizens’ taxes that pay civic workers’ salaries and for the decent upkeep of the cemeteries and crematoriums, citizens may well ask where the money is going.