38-year-old man digs up mother’s grave, brings body home

CHENNAI: For 10 months, for hours on end, he sat next to her grave. He thought she might want water, so he dug a pipeline into where she lay. He didn’t want her to be wet, so as neighbours and relatives watched aghast, he held up white rice bags over the grave when it rained. It didn’t matter that his 65-year-old mother died in February. To anyone that tried to stop him, he had one justification. She was his mother.

There were times in these 10 months that he tried bringing her back from under the earth and began digging her grave. Each time, locals stepped in, preventing him from doing so. Until on December 24, when he did.

Later that morning, people walking in the street in Kunnam village in Tamil Nadu’s Perambalur district found a strong, foul smell coming out of the 38-yearold’s one-bedroom home. They made a call to the Tamil Nadu Police Control room to complain. “By the time we reached the spot, the neighbours had gotten him out of the house but no one knew why there was a smell,” the investigating officer said requesting anonymity.

When the team entered the house, they found that he had locked his mother’s body inside the one room, covered her using old sarees. They removed the clothes gingerly, to find a pile of bones, the skin on them rotting away, almost non-existent. Even then, he protested. “He didn’t let us take her away... Only after his relatives brought him out of the house, could take her body out,” the officer said.

A probe has revealed that the 65-year-old woman died in February this year of age-related complications. The woman was his only caretaker after her husband died 16 years ago.

Officials said that the 38-yearolf was on medication for mental illness for the past decade.

After recovering the body, police officials on Sunday cremated her in a different cemetery in Perambalur after a postmortem examination.

Ramesh Karuppaiya, a social activist in Perambalur, said that reports of the incident were being widely circulated on social media and might add to the “stigma” that the man is facing. “There isn’t a great deal of awareness of mental health problems, and no avenues for help. I fear he will be further stigmatised,” Karuppaiya said.

While a case under Section 174 (police to enquire and report on suicide) of the Code of Criminal Procedure has been filed, officials said they would find mental health support for him.