Goemkarponn desk
CANACONA: Poinguinim villagers showed the way and cremated a Sristhal villager who died after fighting a battle against Covid-19 on Friday as some of the villagers of Sristhal denied to perform final rites to his family in a crematorium in their village.
Prasad Chari, 70 a resident of Vodamoll in the jurisdiction of Sristhal panchayat who was battling with Covid-19 infection since last so many days and was under home isolation succumbed on Friday morning.
As per the normal practice the son approached the Devalay committee to perform the final rites over the body.
The crematorium is in a part of the property belonging to Shri Mallikarjun Devalay and the committee informed the son that they have given NOC to the Sristhal panchayat and he should inform the panchayat to cremate his father’s body.
Simultaneously a few villagers of Vaizawada approached the village leaders near which the crematorium in question is located and requested to allow them to cremate another person who also died of Covid-19 infections on Friday in a covid hospital.
Sources informed that as the victim is from out of their village they denied him cremation there.
Finally the Vaizawada local was cremated in a private property in the village.
Devendra Naik former sarpanch of Sristhal, Damodar Chari and Sandeep Desai secretary of the panchayat met the locals to allow cremation of Prasad Chari be told that earlier they have denied permission to a covid victim from out of village and how they can give permission to him as he is also not from the village.
With arguments and counter arguments there was heated exchange of words between the villagers and those gone to meet them to convince them to see reason and allow the cremation.
As the time was passing fast a few of those demanding cremation took the dead body in a rickshaw and fire wood in another rickshaw and proceeded towards the crematorium only to be sent back as the situation was getting tense.
The news of the unilateral behaviour of the villagers not to allow cremation accompanied by photos of the dead body in a rickshaw infront of his house were made viral throughout Canacona and outside.
Concerned about non allowing a decent cremation to the dead some panch and other leaders of Poinguinim offered the services of the crematorium in the village and on Saturday the final rites of Prasad Chari were performed by his elder son.
