Hindu condemns UK law over funerals

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Davender Ghai described commonly used cremation facilities as "a mechanised humiliation of dignity - a waste disposal process devoid of spiritual significance".

The 70-year-old spiritual healer said "confining bodies in coffins and concealing the cremation process" did not reflect the philosophy and cultural values he lived by.

Mr Ghai, from Gosforth, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, is fighting for the legal right to be cremated on an open-air funeral pyre in "a sacrament of fire". If he is successful, the test case could provide a precedent for other Hindus and Sikhs seeking similar last rites.

Mr Ghai and his supporters were in court listening as his counsel Ramby de Mello described how he was "yearning to die" by the truths of the Hindu religion and to be cremated "with dignity".

Mr Ghai was refused a permit for an open-air cremation site in a remote part of Northumberland in February 2006. Newcastle City Council told him cremations were illegal outside of crematoria under the 1902 Cremation Act. Mr Ghai is seeking court orders and declarations that the refusal violated his human rights.

Mr de Mello told Mr Justice Cranston at the start of a three-day hearing at London's High Court that Mr Ghai was suffering from several complaints, including diabetes, asthma, anaemia and a degenerative spinal disease. Mr Ghai feared not being allowed to die with dignity. Mr Ghai said: "Being bundled into a box and incinerated in a furnace is not my idea of dignity, much less performance of an ancient sacrament."

City council lawyers are arguing the 1902 Act, coupled with regulations made in 1930 and 2008, make it a criminal offence to cremate human remains in any place other than a crematorium. They contend the ban on open-air pyres does not amount to a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The court heard it was Mr Ghai's dearest wish that his 40-year-old eldest son Sanjay, who lives in Canada, should light the funeral pyre while the rest of his family watches as his soul is released from his body into the afterlife.

The hearing continues.