The Man Who Cremated over 24, 000 Unclaimed Dead Bodies

While visiting Ujjain, the city of Mahakal recently very unusual wall writing drew my attention. The writing was: “Lawaris Lash ke Bare Mein Soochit Karen” (Inform about the unclaimed dead body). At first glance, I was confused as to what this means. I asked the driver, a resident of Ujjain, about this person. He told me this person cremates the unclaimed dead bodies in the city free of cost. I immediately dialled his number to ask if he was at home. He told me he was ready to move to attend a call regarding a dead body.

On my request he agreed to wait for me at his home. I postponed all my plans and reached Anil Dagar’s home at Bilotipura. I met a very simple, but strong willed man, at first glance. His office was full of the files in which he maintains record of every dead body that he cremated or buried. All walls of the office had photographs showing his felicitation by bigwigs of the city including some renowned holy persons like Swami Satyamitranand Giri and the present Lok Sabha Speaker Smt Sumitra Mahajan, who is MP from Indore, an emerging metro city about 59 from Ujjain.

My first question was ‘for how long have you been doing it’ he said: “I have been cremating dead bodies at Chakrateertha Crematorium since the age of 15. For some time, I worked as an assistant, but soon after I started doing it full-fledged. I have noticed that most people cannot arrange sufficient quantity of wood for cremation of the body. They try to cremate a body with just 1.5 quintals of wood. Such bodies remain incompletely burnt as the central part of the body requires more time to burn. If the wood is insufficient the torso remains half-burnt. For many years my duty was to notice such bodies & burn them.”

“Once during winter, a dead body from a Joshi family was brought. As it was raining heavily, relatives performed the last rites hurriedly and left. I requested them to stay for some more time, but they ignored my advice. It was raining heavily so river Shipra inundated the crematorium, and that half-burnt body was washesd away. It got stuck in the Riverbed and on reaching the crematorium two days later, I found a sadhu sitting with a burning corpse.

Since it was winter, I arranged tea for him. Pointing to a half-burnt body in the river bed he said it is the same body that you mentioned that day. It is a religious city, where thousands of people come every day from all over the country; it looks bad if dead bodies remain in such a condition. I asked him how I could fetch that body as it was a quagmire and the water flow of the River was strong. He stood up and asked me to follow him to the river bed, we pulled the body out. Already two bodies were burning in the crematorium. He told me to put that too in any of them. The saint advised me to ensure the cremation of all unclaimed dead bodies in the city in 1994. I have been doing this since then.”

The practice continues since 1994. This year, till June 2018, he has cremated or buried 265 bodies. “When this number crosses 400, I go to the Sindhu River in Leh along with my wife and perform tarpan of all the bodies. I have been doing it for the last 24 years. I store the ashes of all the bodies and immerse them in the holy river once a year,” he revealed.

Asked how he attends any call, he said: “As I receive the call, the first task is to fill up a form collecting all vital information about the body. Most calls come through police or the local administration. But when such calls come through general public, I inform police and attend the case only after the police formalities,” he said claiming that he has disposed of about 24,000 unclaimed bodies during the last 24 years.

The bodies come from nearby areas like Nagada, Makshi, Raghvi, Makdom, also. “I cremate or bury each body with full respect. I maintain a complete record of these and submit to the SP office regularly,” said Dagar who works in the Ujjain Municipal Corporation. He cremates or buries the bodies as per their way of worship ascertained by the police. About 2500 Muslim bodies have been buried in 20 years.