China has been implementing mandatory cremation in most areas for years, but in some towns that believe in feng shui, people are still willing to swap bodies for burial, and even kill people as a result, forming a black industry chain with funeral directors. Recently a report disclosed this matter, soon after the online deleted article.
The article reflected superstition, institutional loopholes and the misfortune of the socially disadvantaged, and was quickly deleted, but the article can still be found on some self-published accounts.
The article describes an elderly man in Lufeng City, Guangdong Province, who stated before his death that he did not want to be cremated, and whose family contributed RMB107,000 (about NTD460,000) to make it happen after his death in 2017. During the process, the local crippled driver who carried the casket for the person killed a mentally disabled scavenger and swapped his body with that of the rich old man.
According to a verdict made public online in January, the crippled driver, named Huang Songbin, was arrested in November 2019 after the incident occurred in March 2017. The proceeds of his murder, which amounted to 90,000 yuan, were also recovered.
According to reports, unlike many cities in China, the Ancestral Shrine and the Temple of the Land God in Lufeng, Guangdong Province, have a strong incense culture. Local shopkeepers selling red and white wedding supplies said they had heard many elderly people’s wishes to be “buried in full”, convinced that cremation after death would be a shattering of their bones and would not shelter their descendants or allow for a smooth reincarnation.
In 1997, China implemented the “funeral management regulations”, and cremation was fully implemented except for ethnic minorities and a few areas, mainly because of the increasing population and scarcity of arable land.
Lufeng belongs to the city of Shanwei has not strictly implement this policy, is the province’s funeral target management assessment of the bottom of the first, until 2012, Shanwei mandatory ban on burial, banned the sale of coffins. However, many people still choose to steal burials for private burials, or transfer the bodies of other animals or people to avoid cremation. At least four related cases have occurred in Lufeng on the China Judicial Documents website.
The report said that most of the bodies swapped are unclaimed, mostly vagrants, beggars and elderly people living alone, “vulnerable and poor people are a link in the chain to be slaughtered”.
Residents “desire burial” desire but prompted law enforcement officers to accept bribes. The report points out that in 2014, Lufeng residents have reported that in order to “steal the beam”, contact the town funeral reform responsible for the other side of the price of 60,000 yuan. He also said that the town’s well-off dead are buried in a similar way.
In this latest report, the family of the deceased paid, contacted the funeral home staff, funeral home driver, the latter approached the idle Huang Songbin, indicating the need for a replacement body.
Huang Songbin drove his car, after observing and accosting him on the roadside, he pulled a middle-aged mentally disabled man, Lin Shaoren, into his car and finally forced him to drink until he was unconscious and put him directly into a coffin and sealed him to death.
Lin Shaoren although mentally handicapped, but his family are very caring for him; his father’s condition worsened after the disappearance of his son, the last time to Guangzhou to find someone unsuccessful, returned home a few days after the death.
After giving up the search, the family thought Lin Shaoren had met with an accident, not expecting that he would become the victim of an intentional homicide. His ashes were finally thrown into a shed at the entrance of the cemetery by Huang Songbin and buried with the other unmarked bones.
After the report was published, a statement from the “family of the man who was killed and cremated on behalf of a rich man” appeared online, saying that they had not yet received a word of apology from the killer’s family or the buyer, and that the killer was given a suspended death sentence and the buyer’s family was not prosecuted, “as the victim’s family we feel very upset “.
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