Uttarakhand: Crematory inside Jim Corbett National Park where entry of common man prohibited, dead bodies being buried

Last month the Uttarakhand government demolished more than 26 illegal Mazars built over the reserve forest land. Notably, it has been reported that a crematory has been found inside the world-famous Jim Corbett National Park.

The parts of this tiger reserve forest have restricted entry. The place where this crematory is located falls under the restricted area, so-called no man’s land.

Notably, Panchjanya and Organiser have been reporting that several illegal mosques and tombs have been built inside the Jim Corbett National Park. However, the administration including National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the National Green Tribunal (NGT) remained mute spectators.

It is noteworthy that not a single homestay, resort or restaurant can be built over the forest land without the permission of the NGT and NTCA.

Shockingly, the forest land had 26 Tombs and Mosques, without any knowledge of these authorities. Before NTCA, the park had central authorities under the prestigious ‘Project Tiger’ scheme.

As reported by Panchjanya, a crematory has been built at the Dhikuli area of Corbett Park. a few hundred metres from this place at Ram Nagar there is a separate Cremation ground, still, a board shows that Dhikuli has a Mosque and that no one is allowed on the premises.

This Crematory is located almost 100 meters from where the board is installed and the land clearly belongs to the forest only. The board has instructions reading, whosoever will try and barge into the space or creates litter will have to pay a fine. Who is taking this fine, the crematory owners or the Forest Department?

The locals said that, the cremation ground belongs to the Muslims from ‘Manihar Jati’. Muslims belonging to this jati live from Dhikuli to Binsar Mahadev.

What is more important is that, the community is highly involved with the people of Zakat Markaz and that they have a strong hold over expanding encroachments in the forest. Be it in the name of the Mosque or Tomb, or in the name of crematory land.

In front of this illegal crematory land, there are multiple resorts, the owners have seen people visiting the place often. Some of them confirmed that, Muslims are take dead bodies to the place for burial.

Panchjanya questioned Wildlife Guardian, Dr. Sameer Sinha about the matter. However, Sinha said that he has no idea about the said cremation ground and that he will ask the team to investigate the matter.

Notably, in March this year, the Uttarakhand government rolled bulldozers over illegal Mazars which were built by encroachment on the reserved forest land.

The government authorities demolished 26 Mazars that were illegally constructed on the government’s forest land. The authorities conducted a survey and identified around 1400 religious structures built illegally on government land.

Reports claim, people of the Barelvi Muslim community are actively involved in encroaching government land and have been intentionally building Mazars in forest areas, eventually erecting permanent structures and claiming a larger portion of the forest lands.