Raza Academy to facilitate burial of COVID-19 victims in Mumbai
May 15, 2020
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], May 15 : The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has granted permission to Mumbai-based Islamic organisation, Raza Academy to facilitate burial of persons dying of coronavirus across Mumbai.
"Whenever there is a suspected COVID death of Muslim patient all hospital/ in charges are directed to inform following three co-ordinators from Reza Academy, in addition to local police station and local Medical officer of Health. Task force team from Reza Academy will facilitate for burial of Muslim dead bodies,"BMC circular stated.
"According to government rules, bodies of Muslims who are dying due to COVID-19 in the nearby hospitals are coming here in Bada Kabristan. We are performing burials according to the guidelines issued by BMC and health officials," Shuaib Bashir Khatib, member of task force under Raza Academy told ANI.
"Our dedicated teams are doing work efficiently. If there is no one to claim the dead bodies, or there is no relative or full family is quarantined, then our team will visit the hospital and do the needful. Our team coordinate with hospitals and we claim the body doing burial. We are following all government norms. We are wearing PPE kits while performing burials," he added.
Bashir further said that if relatives are present during the funeral, then the team allows 3 to 4 family members inside not more than that. "We have performed burials of nearly 350 bodies," he added.
Maharashtra is the worst-affected state due to COVID-19. According to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), there are 27,524 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the state including 6,059 patients who have recovered and 1,019 people who have died from the infection.
