The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has decided to allot a piece of land off Basanti Highway to the Dawoodi Bohra community for a burial ground.
The old burial ground for the community, whose first members arrived in Kolkata in the 1840s, is in Beleghata and there is hardly any room left for burial there. About 4,700 members of the community now live in the city.
The 112-cottah (a little less than 2 acres) plot, owned by the KMC, will be allotted to the Dawoodi Bohra Jamaat Trust, Kolkata, on a 99-year lease. It is located along Basanti Highway, close to the Pragati Maidan fire station. The civic house, whose members are the councillors, decided at its monthly meeting on Wednesday to hand the plot to the community.
“The KMC’s house on Wednesday passed a resolution to allot a piece of land along Basanti Highway to the Dawoodi Bohra community. They will only use it for burial. They cannot do any construction on the land,” said a senior official of the KMC. The mayoral council of the KMC had approved the proposal to hand the plot to the Dawoodi Bohra community in November. Now that the civic house has cleared the proposal, all legal formalities for the handover can start.
The KMC’s proposal document mentions that the trust has to pay Rs 100 every year as the lease rent for the Basanti Highway plot. The Dawoodi Bohras are a close-knit community. “My ancestors were the first Dawoodi Bohras to arrive in Kolkata from Surat in 1843. They came in a bullock cart. They set up a trading joint in the Colootala-Chitpore corner,” said Mudar Patherya, a communications professional. Most Bohra Muslims are into trading and business.
In the 1970s, there were about 7,000 Bohra Muslims in Kolkata. The count has since declined to around 4,700, said community members. Patherya said that like every other community, the younger generations of the Bohra Muslims have left Kolkata and settled down in other Indian cities or abroad.
“It is a general trend and our community is no different,” he said. A community member said there was hardly any space left for new burial in the ground in Beleghata. “We had requested the chief minister in 2019 for a piece of land. Since then, we have been in touch with the mayor of Kolkata, who has helped us immensely. We are deeply indebted to the state government,” said a community member.
“Ninety per cent of the Bohra Muslims in Kolkata are still into businesses like hardware and garments. The rest are professionals,” said the community member.
The community has two mosques, one on Brabourne Road and the other in Topsia.
