With no burial land, family buries elderly Karim Mia inside his own home in Sherpur's Sribardi

In Sribardi upazila of Sherpur, a family has buried an elderly man, Karim Mia, 70, inside their own living house because they had no separate land for burial. After his death following a long illness with paralysis, the tin fence of the house was removed and he was buried there.

He was buried inside the house at around 10 a.m. on Monday, 26 October. He had died earlier, at around 2 p.m. on Sunday.

Karim Mia was a resident of Shalmara village in Ward 9 of Tatihati Union in Sribardi upazila. The house where he and his wife had lived is now the place of his grave, creating uncertainty over the family's own shelter.

His elder daughter, Kotuli Begum, said her father had long suffered from paralysis. To meet the cost of his treatment, an aunt had bought from them the house he lived in along with three decimals of land. But with no other place for burial, the family finally had to bury him in that house.

Kotuli Begum said two of the siblings work in homes in Dhaka and another sister lives at her husband's house. They have no land on which to bury their father, so they were forced to bury him inside the house. If there had been a public graveyard, they could have buried him there, but there is no such facility in the area, she said.

Local resident Masud said there is no public graveyard within several kilometres of the area. North of Shalmara Bazar, on the east side of the road, many poor families have no land of their own for a graveyard and must bury relatives on their homesteads. There is much khas land in the area, and a public graveyard there would help local people, he said.

Another local, Nadim, said that despite wealthy people and political activists in the area, no separate place was arranged for Karim Mia's burial. Those concerned should take initiative so that no one else faces such a situation for lack of burial land, he said.

Sribardi Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) Monisha Ahmed said she had seen the matter of the burial inside the house on social media. She said she would visit the place on Tuesday, see the situation on the ground and then decide the next steps.