Berkley Center

The Point of No Return

Over the years, Marikar noted, the Muslim community adopted a more inward approach to living. Muslim community leaders advocated for parents to send children to madrassas rather than public schools. Mosques and madrassas became the center of these neighborhoods, as more and more Muslims chose to settle in close proximity to these institutions. Over time, these neighborhoods became self-sufficient siloes; Muslims ran successful small businesses including the halal meat industry, women wore hijabs and abayas in the streets, and every mosque had its own graveyard. In the eastern province, which was almost entirely Muslim, the call to prayer was recited freely. Some non-Muslims took issue with this. “Our schools are too good for them!” they would exclaim, adding, “This is why there is no national unity!” In many cities, the call to prayer was either banned or significant community pressure was applied to dial down the volume. Marikar chuckled as he recalled this panic, “We had to train our religious clerics to tell people to be calm. When you are a minority, you need to know how to live with the majority.” He was a strong believer that peaceful coexistence required compromise, a view that many passionate young Muslims vehemently disagreed with, but his calm and diplomatic approach made him a reliable intermediary and leader in the community.

However, Marikar’s optimism failed him. Although non-Muslims started learning more about Muslims’ way of life, the result was not positive. For instance, some radical Buddhist groups launched a smear campaign claiming that halal businesses had contributed to a rise in the cost of living for everyone else. The logic behind this, as Marikar understood, was that an individual buying non-halal produce is paying more money than his non-Muslim counterpart. Moreover, Muslims who returned from Arab countries where they worked to send remittances back home were criticized for becoming “Arab-ized” and looked at with suspicion. Slowly, but surely, the community ties were disintegrating. 

On April 21, 2019, Easter Day, 253 people were killed and hundreds more injured in a string of suicide bombings at hotels and churches across the country. ISIS swiftly claimed responsibility for the attacks, although it was later found that members of a local group called the National Thowheed Jama’at had carried out the bombings. The carnage of the attack, which left the Christian community reeling, turned the nation against Muslims overnight. Marikar remembers thinking at the time that this was a turning point in Muslim relations with the rest of Sri Lankan society. Or rather, the point of no return.

The “Science” Behind Cremation

The first Muslim body infected with COVID-19 was identified on March 30, 2020. It was in one of the cities targeted by the Easter bombings. Surely, we had moved on, Marikar thought. However, shortly afterward, he received reports of how the medical professionals who handled the body were reluctant, almost angry, when doing their jobs. 

“When late Mr. Jamal died on the 30th of March, his body was lying in the Negombo hospital where many of the bombing victims’ bodies were taken,” recalled Shreen Abdul Sarsoor, a women’s rights activist and co-founder of the Mannar Women’s Development Federation. Sarsoor was forcibly removed from her home in Mannar in 1990 by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam during the civil war and placed in a refugee camp. “Many of the doctors and hospital staff were still angry at Muslims. To add to this, we were already dealing with anti-Muslim sentiments in our community. Women coming into the hospital were forced to remove their hijab in order to enter and receive treatment!”

The body was going to be buried in a graveyard in Negombo, near the airport. There was a rumor that as the men started solemnly digging the grave, they found water. So instead, the body was driven to Colombo, 35 kilometers away. But it never made it to the burial site.

Marikar described what happened next as a frenzy. In an extraordinary rush, the government released a circular on March 31, 2020, which stated that cremation was the only option for anyone dying of COVID-19 from that point onwards. It was discovered soon thereafter that Mr. Jamal’s body had been cremated in secret, without his family’s consent. “This was unheard of,” Marikar thought.

Hospitals became scenes of chaos. Nobody wanted to be near a body infected with COVID-19. Families were not allowed to wash the body, as Muslim rituals prescribe. The body was wrapped in double body bags, lifted into a casket, and carted off by members of the army to the nearest crematorium. There, health care workers in white scrubs, wearing blue gloves and face shields, stood on either side of the furnace. The casket was pushed with long poles into the flames. Once the mechanical door to the chamber closed, that was it. It was simply terrifying.

On April 7, 2020, Professor. Meththika Vithanage (Ph.D. in Hydrogeology; Prof. in Natural Resources), director of the Ecosphere Resilience Research Centre in the Faculty of Applied Sciences at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, published an article in The Sri Lankan Scientist titled, “Science Behind Burying COVID-19 Infected Dead Bodies.” She wrote:

Therefore, Professor Vithanage’s publication offered speculative scientific justification for the government's mandatory cremation policy, suggesting bodies infected with COVID-19 might contaminate groundwater sources.

“A Muslim Covid Body is Like a Human Bomb”

On April 11, 2020, the government issued a revised circular which said that cremation was mandatory for all “COVID and COVID-suspected” bodies. The intention behind the revision became clear shortly thereafter. “Muslims could be dying of any other diseases—cancer, diabetes, heart attacks—but on the death certificate, the doctors would write in brackets, ‘COVID-induced pneumonia,’” described Sarsor. And thus, they would be shipped off to the crematorium in droves. To escape this fate, Muslims preferred dying at home and not going to the hospital at all.

Some medical professionals were trying to do the right thing, Marikar noted. One doctor even appeared on television to admit that the PCR test of a Muslim woman named Rinoza came back negative for COVID-19, but they had already cremated her body. But these professionals were outnumbered by the majority who chose to mislead the public and the government.

The belief spreading in Sri Lankan society like wildfire was that Muslims, in their closed-off communities, were harboring the disease. Marikar described their fear: “A COVID body is like a human bomb… The myth they projected was that this community might use this as a bomb to contaminate other communities. This is how bad racism can be. When you get into this kind of racism, you do not know where it will end.”

Sarsoor echoed his view in an interview with TRT World, arguing the policy was all a cover to punish the Muslim community. “Now the Sri Lankan government knows, they don’t have to attack Muslims, they don’t have to burn our madrassas, they don’t have to burn our mosques, they don’t have to burn the Quran, they don’t have to kill Muslims. By just burning janazas, they can continue to hatemonger on the Muslim community. It is pure racism.”

Communities were falling apart. Rioters burned several government buildings. Marikar believed this was a perfectly valid response. “When you have riots, everything burns. Somebody has to pay.” He surprised himself by his own boldness. His initial idealism felt like a distant memory.

The Kafan Movement: Interreligious Solidarity

Outrage erupted over the cremation of a 20-day-old COVID-19 victim. The infant was cremated in a Colombo Crematorium called Kanetta. In protest, young people decided to tie a white handkerchief on their person to symbolize a baby’s diaper.

Sarsoor participated in the protests:

Despite this incredible display of interreligious solidarity, the government continued with its cremation policy. Another baby was cremated, this time a 46-day-old. The family was in hysterics. They did not even know for certain if it was their baby, having been denied permission to see its face. At that point, 165 Sri Lankans had died of COVID-19. Muslims accounted for more than half of this number.

International Outrage

On December 31, 2020, Indian Muslim scholar Dr. Zakir Naik posted on his official Facebook page: “Sri Lanka’s ban on the burial of COVID-19 victims is baseless and unscientific. Muslims and Christians are being forced to cremate their dead relatives, in violation of their faith. Let’s make our voices heard in support of Sri Lanka’s persecuted minorities.” A few of the comments underneath the post echoed Naik’s condemnation. Some were curious about Muslim burial practices (“Will those who are cremated have any negative effects in the grave?”), but these comments reflected ignorance and provocation more than genuine curiosity. The majority, however, were blatantly racist. One individual was so affronted they wrote: “What is your proof to say that the decision is baseless and unscientific? Just because you bark like a stray dog over a corner we are not ready to change those decisions. We treat our minorities right and please mind your own business.”

One of the first world leaders to come to Sri Lanka during the crisis was Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. His arrival came at an opportune moment. Muslims were all holding their breath. This was a powerful leader of a Muslim country who could plead their case. As a member of the Honorary Consulate of Pakistan in Colombo, Marikar was conscious of these sentiments.

Marikar sat at the back of the room during one of the official meetings and observed as Rajapaksa appealed to Khan to back Sri Lanka at the United Nations Human Rights Council, where the country’s track record of human rights violations against religious minorities was being questioned. This had been a major concern for his government’s international image. Khan was a representative of the Organization of Islamic Countries. His intercession could be valuable. Much to Marikar’s relief, Khan responded that it would not be possible for him to support Rajapaksa’s cause as long as Sri Lanka was punishing Muslims by denying them the right to bury their dead. In what seemed like a miraculous turnaround, the government expressed openness to the possibility of cooperating with the Muslim community.

At last, they had been invited to the negotiating table.

Part Two

For Marikar, being invited to negotiate on behalf of the Muslim community was the first step. But many challenges lay ahead. The most contentious issue became where to bury the dead.

The first location the government proposed to the Muslim community was an island off the coast of the city of Mennar, which had fewer than a thousand inhabitants. The idea was to hand the bodies over to the navy, who would transport them to the burial site by boat. The proposal was struck down almost immediately by the small but vocal Christian clergy on the island who vocally opposed the plan.

Next, the government offered another island, off the coast of Jeffna. This time, it was an uninhabited island. But the problem was the distance; it would take several hours to transport the bodies from the mainland. To make matters worse, the armed forces were reluctant to come near the bodies. “I don’t blame them,” Marikar thought. “At this point, the government should realize that this is not going to work.” They were basically auctioning off supposedly worthless pieces of land as burial sites with no consideration for the task of transporting the bodies, burying them, and performing funeral rites.

The government’s proposals only became more ambitious and absurd. In December 2020, President Rajapaksa was in talks with Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, president of the Maldives, with the goal of exporting Muslim bodies to the Maldives for burial. Al Jazeera reported that a spokesperson for Solih’s office tweeted: “On special request from Sri Lankan President @GotabayaR, President @ibusolih is consulting stakeholder authorities of the Government of Maldives to assist Sri Lanka in facilitating Islamic funeral rites in the Maldives for Sri Lankan Muslims succumbing to COVID19 pandemic.”

The response from the Muslim community was outrage. Sarsoor was livid. In her interview with TRT World which aired on December 22, 2020, she questioned, “Why do they want their own citizens to be exported to another country? What are they trying to say? Are they telling the Muslims that they don’t belong to this country? That if you are living here, we can’t kill you and make you vanish, but if you die, we will export your dead bodies?”

It was clear that if the search for a solution was left to the government, there would be no resolution to the ongoing crisis. Every proposal was struck down. At one point, Marikar and his team even proposed designing reinforced concrete cylinders to bury the bodies. “Even a bomb could not penetrate that,” he laughed.

So he took it upon himself to reach out to all the businessmen in his network who would answer his call to action. Together, they found the perfect location in a town called Oddamavadi on the east coast, nearly a six-hour drive from Colombo. “We did 3,400 burials in Oddamavadi; 3,000 Muslims and 400 were members of other communities who wished to be buried. There were also some people who were legally not allowed to be buried because they had committed a crime, and we buried them too. We handled everything, from transporting the bodies from the morgue in refrigerated lorries to handing them over to the army for burial. It was a big organization.”

Families arrived at the site by bus. On either side of the dirt road, there was nothing but green fields and sparse trees, until the bus ground to a halt at an army checkpoint. A soldier with a rifle slung over his shoulder would wave the bus through to the graveyard beyond. Families who were going to be transported back home waited under a tin roof that shielded them from the sun. The graveyard, cordoned off with a wire fence, was scattered with white headstones. Small groups of mourners paid their respects in silence before making the journey home. It was a somber sight, but peaceful. 

Marikar and his fellow businessmen also fronted the bill for coffins, funerals, meals, and transport for families. But the most remarkable part of this feat remains that it was entirely volunteer-run. Marikar was elated. Now, if a person died at 7:00 a.m. in the morning, they could be buried before sundown. It was a big accomplishment. They had come a long way from the early days of the pandemic.