Dubai: An Indian man has described the mental anguish and financial loss he had to endure when his father’s body was not allowed to be flown from Sharjah after the embalming had been done in Dubai.
JP, who does not wish to reveal his full name, told Gulf News that he was shocked when Dubai Municipality officials denied him permission to fly his father’s body from Sharjah when he went for approval for embalming the body.
“My dad suffered a stroke and died on a Thursday in May at Al Qasimi Hospital in Sharjah. We couldn’t do any paper work over the weekend. After doing all the cumbersome documentations to fly his body from Sharjah, we went to Dubai for arranging the embalming. By then, it was already five days after my dad passed away,” he recalled.
JP said he had booked tickets for him and his cousin with Air Arabia and also paid for the cargo to transport his father’s body.
“Then we went to schedule the embalming at Muhaisnah. Then the municipality officials said, no, you cannot take the body from Sharjah... I was shocked! I explained my case and requested them. But, they showed a notice and said they are just obeying the rule.”
JP said he went to Dubai Police and Dubai Municipality’s headquarters. “I tried my best to travel on the booked flight. The cops said they don’t have any problem in me taking the body from Dubai. Even the employees who attended to me at the municipality were shocked initially. But, when they rang up the Muhaisnah office, they were also told that nothing can be done as it is a rule.”
JP said he lost over Dh3,000 as they could not travel on the flight from Sharjah to Goa on which they had already booked tickets. He then had to do the whole documentation for repatriation again in Dubai, which took another two days for completion.
According to JP, his father’s body was brought from Sharjah to Muhaisnah in a Sharjah ambulance for free while Dubai Municipality charged for the service of transferring the body from Muhaisnah to Dubai Airport.
“We also had to inform the Indian authorities about the arrival of the body so that they could arrange a doctor to issue the death certificate over there. Our case was very famous in Goa as they had to wait for two-three days for us. We had to resend the documents to them before we finally managed to fly from Dubai.
“It was a big issue. We were already stressed out a lot. During the emotional trauma, we had to take all this additional stress. Thankfully, my company was so cooperative and understanding. All companies need not be so and some people might face issues with their companies too in such circumstances,” he said.
JP said that the funny part which he realised from the experience was “you can fly from any emirate when you are alive… but you can’t do that when you are dead.”
“I wish the authorities will either change this rule or at least inform the applicants when we process the repatriation documents about this clause. Then people can at least know what to do to avoid such situations,” he added.
