A man final laid to rest in Dammam after three years since his death

Team Udayavani, Nov 17, 2018, 5:51 PM IST

Kasaragod: A man identified as Hassainar Kunhi (57), son of Kunhi Hamad was finally laid to rest through the burial of his mortal remains in a mosque in Dammam after about three years since his death. The final rites of the deceased had not been performed because of legal wrangles arising out of the fact that his passport contained wrong address. Hence his corpse had been preserved at the Katheeb Central Hospital at Dammam in Saudi Arabia.

The mortal remains of the deceased were finally handed over to relatives of the deceased at Dammam after the family of Hassainar had met Mangaluru MP, Nalin Kumar Kateel, and sought his help to conduct the funeral. The MP had written to minister for external affairs, Sushma Swaraj, seeking her intervention.

The incident

Hassainar was running a super market in Saudi Arabia and had died due to ill health on December 4, 2015 in the hospital. However, his mortal remains were not handed over to relatives because of lack of proper address in the passport and therefore was preserved in the hospital.

Later, the authorities had asked assistance from the social workers from India functioning in Saudi Arabia in identifying the body and to bury it in Saudi Arabia. Hence, a plea to identify Hasainar’s body had been published in newspapers during August, in which the report said that the unidentified body was lying in hospital.

Hassainar’s brother K Abubakar, identified the body after seeing photos published in some local newspapers. He had tried to get custody of the body. He was finally able to get custody of the corpse after contacting MP Nalin Kumar Kateel, through whom he established contact with Sushma Swaraj and obtained no objection certificate.