People in UP village face a grave' problem

Lucknow: In their prayers, they do not ask for wealth and happiness — all they ask for is two yards of land top bury their dead.

The Chah Pokhar village in Achnera  on the Agra-Jaipur highway in Agra district has a unique problem. This Muslim-dominated village has no graveyard; the one they had, has been submerged into a pond.

The village head, Sunder Singh, said, “It has been months since we have been asking the district officials to allocate land for a graveyard in the outskirts of the village, but no action has been taken. People are forced to bury the dead behind their own houses”.

According to Sunder Singh, the Chah Pokhar village has a population of 3300 with the majority belonging to Muslim community. “Today, every second house has a grave by its side and children and women, often, are afraid to venture out because of horror stories that do the rounds. We have sent innumerable letters to the district magistrate and additional DM but there has been no response”, he said.

According to reports, some mischievous elements in the village spread tales about the dead walking around on moonless nights and claim to be hearing strange voices. “Because of this some women and children have even fallen ill and people insist that it is the impact of evil spirits. The whole village is in the grip of a baseless fear”, the village head said.

The villagers have now sent a letter to chief minister Yogi Adityanath in this regard, seeking his intervention, but it has already been a fortnight and there has been no response.

Meanwhile, sub-divisional magistrate Arun Kumar said that he was apprised of the matter and efforts are on to earmark another piece of land as graveyard as the one earmarked earlier has been submerged into a pond.