Grave relocation protested

TANGERANG (JP): The Tangerang mayoralty decided yesterday to abandon its plan to relocate graves from the Tanah Gocap cemetery in Karawaci to Kedaung Baru village in Batuceper due to opposition from local people who were angry that they were not consulted about the plan.

The decision was made in a meeting between Tangerang Mayor H. Djakaria Machmud and community leaders at Kedaung Wetan village. The mayor apologized to the residents for not consulting with them before implementing the plan.

Under the plan, the mayoralty will establish a 10-hectare cemetery for Buddhist people. In the first stage, a cemetery will be used to relocate 310 graves from Tanah Gocap, which will be demolished for the construction of a road project.

However, after seven of 310 graves were relocated to the new cemetery on Friday, they were dug up by local people in the evening. They did the same thing on the following day after officers buried the remains again. Some of the remains were even burned by the protesters.

Due to the decision to abandon the relocation at Kedaung Baru, 99 holes already prepared will be closed up. The mayoralty will instead relocate the graves to the Rawa Kucing cemetery in Kedaung Wetan.

Commenting on the mayoralty's decision to relocate the graves to the other area, Kiat Eng, 40, of the Padumutara Foundation in charge of handling the burial of Buddhist people, said, "We'll just do whatever the mayoralty decides."

However, he expressed concern over poor planning which led to the removal of graves. (41/hhr)