Jamiyyath al-Salaf President Sheikh Abdullah Mohamed has called upon the government to further clarify its efforts to assist the Sri Lankan government in allowing the country to bury Sri Lankan Muslims who succumbs to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Maldives.
This comes after the Maldivian government announced earlier this week that on special request from Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Maldivian President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih is consulting stakeholder authorities of the Government of Maldives to assist Sri Lanka in facilitating Islamic funeral rites in the Maldives for Sri Lankan Muslims succumbing to COVID19 pandemic.
Speaking to the ‘The Press’, Sheikh Abdullah said that this is not the case of Sri Lankan civilians asking the Maldivian government for assistance but rather the Sri Lankan government seeking the Maldives’s support on the matter.
He said that in this case, it is imperative to clarify whether the Sri Lankan government had made this request after consulting the Sri Lankan Muslim community.
Sheikh Abdullah said that Muslim Scholars, Muslim politicians, and NGOs in Sri Lanka have all spoken against its government’s decision to enforce forced cremation on Muslims who die from the pandemic.
He went on to say that Sri Lankan authorities have based their regulation to cremate those who die from COVID-19 on studies done by Buddhists and Hindu researchers which states that burying bodies could contaminate groundwater and spread the virus.
Sheikh Abdullah questioned why this would apply to Sri Lankan ground alone and why such a study had not been done for Maldivian ground burials of COVID-19 victims.
He highlighted that the whole concept of cremation for COVID-19 victims hold no water as no other major country is practicing this method during the global pandemic and that WHO had not sanctioned forced cremations.
The group’s president also questioned the logistics of such an arrangement of Sri Lanka sending their Muslim COVID-19 victims for burial in the Maldives. He said that it would be a costly arrangement and who would bear the brunt of the cost must be made clear.
Sheikh Abdullah said that the Maldivian government cannot bear such a cost on its shoulder and that Sri Lankan government would not shoulder such a cost given their current treatment of Muslims there.
He added that the whole concept and arrangement is baffling.
Good
Thankyou Sheikh