A gravedigger was found allegedly involved in selling existing graves at a city’s cemetery for Rs20,000 here on Saturday.
Police came to know regarding the incident after a citizen approached them complaining that his father’s grave at the Ismail Goth cemetery was found dug up, two days after he visited it.
The complainant said that he found his father’s grave being dug up when he visited it on Eid. “It was present there two days back,” he added.
The police acting on the complaint arrested the suspect identified as Kamran as three of his accomplices fled. “We have arrested a gravedigger from ancient Ismail Goth graveyard for reselling existing graves,” an official at Sharafi Goth police station said.
The suspect used to receive Rs20,000 in order to create space in the cemetery for a new grave while uprooting the old one, they said adding that he has confessed to his crime during an initial investigation.
A previous report highlighted that the “graveyard mafia” laying siege on cemeteries across Karachi charges people Rs30,000- to 40,000 for finding them a grave space while the official KMC fee for a grave is only Rs9,500.
Since space has run out in the KMC owned cemeteries, the mafia lures new clients by arranging for them a burial place by removing old ones and replacing them with the newly sold graves, when the family members don’t visit cemeteries.
