A Woman Wasn’t Allowed To Perform Her Husband’s Last Rites Because She Didn’t Have An Aadhar Card. What About The Humanity Card?

A Woman Wasn’t Allowed To Perform Her Husband’s Last Rites Because She Didn’t Have An Aadhar Card. What About The Humanity Card?

When the second wave of the pandemic hit us, several videos and documentaries surfaced exhibiting corpses lying around like piles of hay. There has been so much death and depression engulfing us, that our mental health has taken an obvious dip. But is it that the workers in these graveyards and cemeteries have become desensitized to grief that comes along? Recently, a woman was stopped from burying her husband’s body in a graveyard by a caretaker in Bareilly district. The reason given to her was that she didn’t have an Aadhaar card.

A woman in her 30s, Shabnam is from Kanpur and lived a nomadic life with her late husband Zubair and four children. They travelled from one place to another, in rural Uttar Pradesh making a living out of selling knives and other such items. The family of six had decided to take a break from nomadic living and establish roots at a place for some time. They were living in a tarpaulin tent on the outskirts of Abhaypur Keshopur under Bhojipura police station limits, as reported by Times Of India.

However, one day, after a minor fight, Zubair committed suicide. A police investigation and autopsy happened and it was found that her husband had, as a matter of fact, taken his own life. So when she got her husband’s body back, she tried to give him a dignified burial but was denied by the caretaker because she didn’t have an Aadhar card. The local village head didn’t help her either.

Shabnam didn’t know what to do with her husband’s body and how she can give him the basic dignity of being buried properly in a graveyard. Thankfully, an NGO ‘Awam-e-Khidmaat’ came to her rescue and allowed her to perform the last rites in their private graveyard.

The social worker who helped her told TOI that Shabnam is very poor and she doesn’t have the money to pay for the grave. The Bareilly ASP Rajkumar Agarwal said that denying a woman to perform the last rites of her husband in a respectful manner is being investigated.

ALSO READ: This UP Woman Carried Her Husband’s Dead Body In An E-Rickshaw Because She Couldn’t Afford An Ambulances

When did having an Aadhar card become more important than humanity? It is understandable that someone like Shabnam, who has been living a nomadic life with no home, not much financial stability may not have an Aadhar card. Unless, the Government does something to fix this on a humanitarian level, it is unfair to not make concessions when it comes to documentation. Have we seen so much that we have lost the softness in our souls?

ALSO READ: Rajasthan Man Forced To Drive His Daughter’s Corpse For 85Kms After Numerous Ambulances Quoted Exorbitant Fees

Akanksha Narang

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