Edhi Foundation has the largest network for the burial of dead bodes or unclaimed coffins in Pakistan. Graveyards have been established in various cities of Pakistan—like Karachi, Lahore, and Rawalpindi, including in New York, USA.
Mr. Edhi has the privilege of having the world record, for providing the last prescribed bath (Ghusal) before shrouding the coffin by his own hands which exceeds 58,000 dead bodies and unclaimed coffins, and making all arrangements for their burial.
igThree metropolises—such as Karachi, Lahore, and Rawalpindi have made the annual contracts with Edhi Foundation for burial of unidentified dead bodies, which have been recovered from drowning, or resulted in deaths owing to homicides, or resulted due to road accidents. Shrouds and coffin boxes are being arranged without any cost to those, who aren’t in a position to afford or pay for the burial rites by themselves.
Non-Muslims are also provided services in accordance with their own religious rites, with the assistance of a church or temple, respectively. Besides these services, larger-sized air-conditioned mortuaries have been established at Karachi to keep the unidentified bodies for few days, and very sooner the burial rites are rendered, in case, any close kin of the deceased couldn’t be possible to trace out.
Edhi Foundation not only provides burial services, even it is providing transporting of dead bodies from across the Pakistan and across the world.
A record number of 58,261 unclaimed and abandoned dead bodies were buried by Edhi Foundation. As a break-down, following tabulation shows year-wise burial of coffins from 2005 to 2012 (for a period of 8 years):
2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | Total |
12,562 | 4,819 | 6,611 | 6,692 | 6,492 | 6,493 | 7,854 | 6,738 | 58,261 |