The Maradu Municipal council’s decision on Tuesday to retain the person arranged temporarily to take care of Santivanam, the crematorium in Nettoor, received a setback when the person closed the day’s work and left the keys with the Municipality office for good.
T.B. Sadanandan was taking care of the crematorium on a daily-wage basis since the services of the earlier contractor was terminated when half-burnt bodies were discovered last week. He was appointed on the recommendation of Opposition leader P.K. Raju.
Mr. Raju told The Hindu that when the ruling members of the council accused the new person too of not properly cremating the bodies, Sadanandan gave up his job on Mr. Raju’s advice. “The accusation was politically motivated,” he said.
He said the licensee for crematorium operations was Vasu Kettezhathuveedu of Nettoor. But the person who ran the crematorium was Nandanan, who was arrested last week and released as no charges were pressed against him.
The council meeting had also decided to file a case against the contractor. Municipal chairman T.K. Devarajan told The Hindu that the temporary person’s resignation was a conspiracy. He said it was difficult to get people to do the job though a person was likely to arrive on Wednesday morning.
On Sunday, RDO Swagath Bhandari visited the site after more half burnt bodies were discovered. She has called a meeting on Thursday in which the Municipal chairman, Opposition leader, the BJP, the representatives of Hindu organisations and others are expected to participate.
Discovery of unburned bodies from the two shutters at the crematorium run by the Maradu Municipality has irked the public, the Opposition parties and the Hindu organisations who are blaming the authorities for shoddy maintenance of the public crematorium.
A series of events over the past one year in the crematoriam and the discovery of the half-burnt bodies led to the arrest of the person who ran the crematorium, said C.S. Sasidharan, president of the Hindu Aikya Vedi.
The people of the region had complained about improper maintenance and firewood shortage at the crematorium, he said. The crematorium caters to areas like Kumbalam Aroor, Arookutty, Panangad and others, he added. For the people, the other nearest crematorium is in Ravipuram or Tripunithura.
K.K. Jayan, a local resident, said people here had been suspecting the manner in which bodies were cremated as the person would close the fire in just two hours. It takes about four to five hours for a body to be fully burnt and the earlier person was using very little firewood and taking in more bodies than the crematorium could facilitate, said Mr. Jayan.
Leaders of Hindu organisations from Maradu Municipality and Kumbalam panchayat in a meeting held on Tuesday demanded that a probe be held into the incidents of half-burnt bodies.
Mr. Devarajan said the municipality intends to make the crematorium work properly and the emergency meeting approved the termination of the earlier contractor of the crematorium. A new tender would be finalised in two weeks, he said. He said the municipality would soon be submitting a project to set up a gas-fired crematorium at Santivanam for which Rs. 38 lakh had been earmarked. He said a sub-committee will be formed that will include the division councillor and health inspector to oversee the crematorium operations.
The contract for crematorium was awarded at Rs. 85,000 a year and a similar amount during the previous years. However, it is learnt that the contractor had only remitted Rs. 70,000.
The chairman said the contractor had complained of the unviable low cost of Rs. 1,300 to cremate the bodies.
