Alleged grave recycling and shallow burials at Chatsworth cemetery

WOODEN TOMBSTONE

- YOSHINI PERUMAL

THE shallow grave that the Soobramoney family was concerned about.

(Supplied)

A PHOENIX family has raised alarming concerns about burial practices at the Mobeni Heights Cemetery in Chatsworth after discovering their mother was buried in what appears to be a shallow grave.

Their experience, combined with another family’s claim that their parents’ grave was reallocated without permission, has sparked fears of grave recycling and improper burial practices at the facility.

Helen Soobramoney, of Phoenix, said her mother passed on three weeks ago.

She said they had a family grave site which had been leased to them for 10 years, and when they went to inspect it before her mother’s burial, they noticed that the wrong grave had been opened.

She claimed that after the grave diggers were dispatched to dig up the right grave, they noticed that it was “very shallow” compared to how it was usually dug up.

Soobramoney said her family were already traumatised by the death of her mother, and that they suffered further trauma when workers at the cemetery told them that they would have to hurry with their final goodbyes as they were closing early.

“It was September 23, and a day before the public holiday. We could not understand why they were closing early when the public holiday was only the next day.