Cremation criminals

Five Chinese men have been jailed for stealing corpses to save other bodies from cremation. Beijing is trying to force Chinese families to cremate their relatives rather than burying them, to preserve land. However, many Chinese, particularly those from rural areas, believe that the dead must be kept intact and buried to achieve eternal peace in the afterlife. Several families in the eastern province of Shandong sought the help of a local funeral parlour owner to fraudulently obtain cremation certificates. He hired several men from a neighbouring county, where the rules had been less strictly enforced, to exhume newly buried bodies and have them cremated under false identities.