Following the intervention of the District Collector, the body of Dinny Chacko who died of COVID-19 on June 8 was buried at the cemetery of St. Sebastian Church, Thachudaparambu, on Wednesday.
The church and local people had protested against the burial at the cemetery, citing that it was a vault-type cemetery and did not have deep burial facility as per the COVID-19 protocol. Church authorities and local bodies had alleged that the church was situated in a wetland area and that deep burial would pollute wells nearby.
However, relatives of the deceased sought the intervention of the District Collector and sought permission to bury the body at the church cemetery. The church vicar Sebastian Nadavaramban insisted that burial could be allowed only after the submission of a certificate from the Health Department.
On Wednesday, District Collector S. Shanavas visited the place in the presence of Irinjalakuda Bishop Mar Pauly Kannukadan, the Thachudaparambu vicar, church committee members and the District Rural Police Chief. The compound was dug to a depth of 10 feet, but no water was found.
After consultations with the Health Department and other officials concerned, the Collector ordered that the deep burial (with 9 ft. depth) of the body be allowed near the compound wall of the church by maintaining COVID-19 protocol.
The body, kept at the mortuary of the Government Medical College Hospital, was buried on Wednesday evening amid huge police presence. The funeral was attended by Chacko’s parents, sister and brother in-law.
Chacko, a college lecturer in the Maldives, had returned to Chalakudy on May 10. He passed away at the Government Medical College Hospital on June 8.