'No, You Can't Have A Funeral Pyre In The UK'

A Hindu spiritual healer has lost a legal battle for the right to be cremated on a traditional open-air funeral pyre.

Devender Ghai, 70, from Newcastle upon Tyne, has been campaigning for several years to be allowed a traditional Hindu-style cremation in the UK.

Mr Ghai made headlines around the world after he organised a funeral pyre for Rajpal Mehat in 2006.

Although permission had been granted by Northumbria Police, the cremation led to outrage as the Department of Constitutional Affairs and Newcastle City Council said it was illegal to hold open-air cremations under the Cremation Act.

He was subsequently denied a licence for a pyre site by Newcastle City Council, prompting him to take the case to the High Court in London.

The 1930 Cremation Act of UK law states that any cremation of human remains outside a crematorium is illegal.

Mr Ghai challenged the Act, and if successful his case could have prompted many other Hindus to seek the same type of open air funeral.

Traditionally, the body is placed on a bed of wood. It is wrapped in cloth and set alight. The body is burnt in a "sacrament of fire" and liberated in the consecrated flames.

In his latest witness statement to the High Court, Mr Ghai said: "Being bundled into a box and incinerated in a furnace is not my idea of dignity, much less the performance of an ancient sacrament."

He added: "I will not deny my claim is provocative, least of all in a nation as notoriously squeamish towards death as our own."

Newcastle City Council claimed that open-air cremations were impractical.

But Mr Ghai insisted he was not calling for unregulated cremations. continues here

BID FOR TRADITIONAL HINDU CREMATION

An elderly Hindu man is going to the High Court in a bid to win the right to be cremated on a traditional open-air funeral pyre when he dies.

In a test case on religious burials, Davender Ghai, 70, is challenging a refusal by Newcastle City Council to permit him to be cremated according to his Hindu faith.

His human rights application is being supported by a wide range of Hindu organisations.

The local authority contends that a pyre outside a crematorium is prohibited by the 1902 Cremation Act.

Mr Ghai's lawyer, Andrew Singh Bogan, said a successful challenge would "create a precedent for all local authorities to grant open air funeral pyres if there was demand in their area".

Mr Ghai, founder of the Anglo-Asian Friendship Society (AAFS), was refused a permit for an open-air cremation site in a remote part of Northumberland in February 2006.

His legal team will argue at a three-day hearing before Mr Justice Cranston, sitting in London, that the law does not prohibit a religious cremation outside a crematorium.

They will contend that, if it does, it is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.

They will ask the judge to declare it is discriminatory and breaches Mr Ghai's right to protection for his private life and religious and cultural beliefs.  continues here