Sri Lanka, today, Friday, canceled the decision to compulsory cremation of the bodies of the deceased with the Corona virus, days after the Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan - who visited the island - to respect Islamic rituals to bury the dead.
According to a notice published today in the Official Gazette, Sri Lankan Minister of Health Pavithra Waniarache canceled the ban on burying the dead, which was imposed since last April after recording the first death due to the epidemic in the country.
This notice does not provide any justification for the sudden shift, while the Sri Lankan government has repeatedly rejected appeals from international organizations and Muslim citizens - who make up about 10% of the population - to allow Muslims to be buried according to their rituals.
Official sources confirmed that the Pakistani Prime Minister - who paid an official visit to Colombo last Tuesday and Wednesday - raised a very sensitive issue of burning the bodies of Muslim dead, with President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.
The Sri Lankan government banned the burial of the bodies of people who died due to the Corona virus, amid allegations by influential Buddhist clerics that the corpses pollute the groundwater and spread the virus.
However, the World Health Organization maintains that the danger claimed by Buddhist clergy does not exist.
The Associated Press quoted a statement by the Pakistani embassy in Colombo that Prime Minister Imran Khan had called on Buddhists in Sri Lanka to visit Buddhist sites in Pakistan, especially those in the north of the country, sites that Imran said were the center of the Buddhist "Gandra" civilization Old.
It is noteworthy that Sri Lanka includes about 22 million people, 70% of them are Buddhists, Tamils make up 15%, and Muslims 10%.