HYDERABAD: Even the dead have to fight it out for space thanks to the rapid growth in cities like Hyderabad, even as land sharks eye swathes of uncharted burial land for commercialisation.

The city police discovered a dump of 25 human skeletons from a dilapidated and abandoned mosque recently. They heaved a sigh of relief on realising the bones were from a nearby graveyard.

But the discovery speaks volumes of the acute shortage of burial space. There are 1,645 burial sites in the city. With an inflow of 25 burials a day and lack of land for expansion, the managements of these grounds are hard pressed to accommodate all the dead.

According to Moulana Khaleel Quadri of Madina mosque, almost every grave had five to eight layers of bodies lying below them. Not surprisingly, graveyards are full to the brim. For instance the discovery at Saber nagar grave was a result of the heavy burials there, 15 to 20 for each tomb. In some cases, officials of the Wakf board point out, the number goes beyond 25.

In one instance in Jahanuma, one of the oldest burial grounds in the city, the record is 57 skeletons over 15 layers in one grave alone. This is despite a decision by graveyard committees of the city mosques in 1998 to limit burials to a maximum of five to each grave. Many a time the dead are reburied at one place to make space for other bodies.

Of late however, this has led to problems. In some instances the skeletons have surfaced due to heavy rains or because of the menace of the dogs that dig up the old graves. But more recently, the aggressive road widening  has posed yet another problem.

Officials of the Wakf board said that they had occasionally brought it to the notice of the government for more space for Muslim burial grounds but it seems to be a losing battle. So much so, families in Shalibanda, Yakutpura, and Charminar refuse to bury their dead in the surrounding graveyards near the mosques. Instead they prefer to carry them to mosques in other localities.

Residents of Shalibanda were shocked last June to see 50 odd skeletons washed onto the road after a heavy shower. “Moreover, it is difficult for the poor to pay huge fees being charged by the graveyard committees ranging from Rs1,500 to Rs15,000,” says Moulana Basheeruddin Khallel of Mehdipatnam mosque.

One major threat confronting the burial grounds is from land sharks who are occupying grave yards to develop apartments and housing colonies. Huge areas have been encroached where land prices are sky high.

Digitised land records in which many burial grounds show up vacant land has meant that land operators have a heyday converting unclaimed government lands, wakf lands and graveyards for housing plots and construction with the connivance of municipal officials.