A young Hyderabadi resident, Goutham, has decided to bring a change in the society by cremating orphan dead bodies with full religious rites.
Goutham founded a non-governmental organisation (NGO) 'Serve Needy' and has been carrying out the function without expecting anything in return for the last two years.
"We named the project 'Free Last Rites for Orphan Dead Bodies' and started it 2 years ago. Till date, we have done conducted the last rites for around 500 dead bodies. For this, I have been awarded 'Bharat World Record' and Bharat 'Yuva Seva Ratna Award'. We conduct last rites for the people of all religions giving proper respect to the religion of the person," Goutham told ANI here.
Talking about his work he added, "I try to involve people in conducting the last rites, we don't need people as spectators but we need them to bring a change. Through this, I think I'm giving the right platform to the people to show them to what extent we forward the level of humanity."
Speaking about the modus operandi of the organisation he said, "When someone finds an orphan dead body they contact us. We first make sure that the people who lost their lives are indeed orphans and then get their death certificate from the police department."
"We then get to the cremations grounds where everything will be made ready for the last rites. Not just boys but here girls also perform the last rites along with me. Even the public is supporting the project. This is the first time that such a thing is happening in India," he added.
Talking further about the rites conducted according to the religious lines he said, "We do cremations according to the religion of the person, like if the dead is a Hindu then we burn them and offer the last rites in traditional Hindu way. If the dead is a Muslim then we bury them according to Muslim tradition and if the dead is a Christian then we offer prayers and put them in a coffin and then bury them. Even after the last rites, we visit the burial place and we do prayers."
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He said, "We never know when do we get a call from a place. I can not raise funds at the last minute, so I need to spend money from the organisation. Then I post for donations on social media and from there I get people who donate and from that money we do the last rites. Generally, people don't donate for the last rites. But now people are coming forward."
Goutham spoke about the other projects being run by the NGO, "Apart from this we also run an old age home, an orphanage and also do a project named 'Annadatha' where we offer food to 1000 people every day in all the branches across the country. We also do a project called ' green books' where we collect used books, recycle them and turn them into new books and donate them to students in tribal areas and in government schools.