To End Drought, Nagarkurnool Villagers Exhume and Burn Buried Body on Tantrik's Advice
The villagers brought in an earthmover and exhumed the body
HYDERABAD: Padara police of Nagarkurnool district booked eight villagers for hurting religious feelings, showing indignity to a human corpse, and disturbing a funeral ceremony. Superstitious villagers had exhumed the body of Koyala Anjaneyulu, performed rituals and re-cremated it, believing this would bring rain.
“Eight villagers of Kodonipally, believing there was no rain in their village because of not performing Anjaneyulu’s final rites properly, exhumed the body on August 22, using an earthmover, performed rituals, placed it on a pyre, doused it with petrol and cremated it again,” said Padara station house officer S. Vinod Kumar.
Police said that the villagers had spoken to Anjaneyulu’s father on August 14 and convinced him that performing proper rituals as per their traditions would bring rain in the village. Anjaneyulu, a native of Kodonipally village, who worked as a mason, died in a road mishap in LB Nagar in Hyderabad on May 2. After receiving the body from Osmania General Hospital mortuary, his family members buried him in their agricultural fields. Police have recovered the burnt remains and sent it for DNA matching for identification and are seeking a legal opinion for further investigation.