Pak Hindus, Chinese and Japanese need Indian visas to immerse ashes of loved ones

Karachi, Dec.4 : About 130 Sindhi Hindu, Chinese, Japanese and Buddhist families have been waiting for a year for their Indian visas to be approved.

According to the Daily Times, they want the visas to travel to India to immerse the ashes of their loved ones in the Ganges River.

The ashes are sealed in copper or earthen pots and tied up in red and white cloth with Sindhi, Hindu, Urdu and English tags with the details of the deceased on them.

According to the paper, these urns are lying in a unique catalog room inside an old library at the Gujjar Hindu Community Burial and Cremation Ground in old Golimar, near a Muslim graveyard.

The tags reveal that some of the ashes have been kept since 1970 and have been in the cremation ground for the last four decades. The tags also disclosed that some of the ashes belong to Chinese, Japanese and Buddhists who died in the city. Their bodies were brought to the cremation ground, were cremated and the ashes have been there since then.

The caretaker of the cremation ground said that when he conducted a detailed search of the urns he found the ashes of Buddhists, Chinese and even Japanese. He added that the relatives of the deceased Hindus have repeatedly contacted the Indian government to obtain legal documents, but without much success.

ANI