A harried woman has approached the Delhi High Court seeking to get back the mortal remains of her husband whose body was buried in Saudi Arabia after an official translator at the Indian Consulate wrongly declared that the deceased was Muslim.
Anju Sharma contended neither she nor any of her family members had given consent for the burial of her husband Sanjeev Kumar.
In a writ petition filed through advocate Subhash Chandran K R, Sharma, a resident of Una district in Himachal Pradesh, said that her husband, an Indian migrant who had worked in Saudi Arabia for 23 years died on January 24, due to diabetes, hypertension and cardiac arrest. His mortal remains were kept at the Baesh General Hospital in Jizan, Saudi Arabia.
"Shockingly, on February 18, 2021, the petitioner was informed that the dead body of her husband has been buried. The officials in the Indian Consulate explained that it was due to a mistake committed by the official translator of the Indian Consulate, Jeddah who wrongly mentioned his religion as ‘Muslim’ in the death certificate," her plea stated.
They also shared a letter of apology tendered by the official translating agency of the Indian Consulate in Jeddah, it pointed out.
Her subsequent request to bring back mortal remains has been pending for seven weeks as the authorities failed to complete the necessary formalities in violation of her fundamental rights to repatriate the mortal remains of Sanjeev Kumar to India to perform the last rites. The petitioner and family members had completed all formalities by January 28 for repatriation of the mortal remains.
In her plea, the woman sought a direction to the Indian Consulate, through the Union government, to do necessary formalities for exhuming the mortal remains of the husband and repatriate it to India on an urgent and time-bound basis to perform the last rites as per their custom and belief.
She also sought appropriate departmental actions against concerned Indian officials for their willful negligence.