CHINA:POLICE IN the southern Chinese province of Guangdong have arrested members of a "cash for corpses" gang suspected of murdering more than 100 disabled or elderly people and selling the cadavers to families wanting to bury their dead rather than cremate them, writes Clifford Coonan
The Communist Party has tried to encourage cremation as the most efficient way of dealing with the dead - it does not take up so much space, conserves valuable arable land, and it also flies in the face of superstition, which the party abhors.
The gang are accused of following the elderly or mentally ill victims in remote areas of rural China before snatching and strangling or poisoning them.
A funeral home confirmed that it had collected many bodies from a site which has subsequently been identified as the gang's headquarters.
The price of a corpse was 10,000 yuan (€1,000) each, according to a police officer in the southern town of Puning. The officer said police had made seven arrests during a murder investigation which uncovered the gang's gruesome activities.
For traditionally minded Chinese, burial is the most respectful way to handle the dead. According to a report this week in the South China Morning Postin Hong Kong, the bodies of the victims were purchased by wealthy families and cremated instead of deceased relatives, who were then secretly buried with full traditional fanfare.
A decision to outlaw burials in the 1950s in many parts of China has been blamed for the rise in the black-market corpse trade, and critics say it is also disrespectful of customs and traditional values.
There is a belief that burying a dead relative will lead to blessings and protection for the living.
In 2004 a man from a neighbouring county in Guangdong was arrested for murdering 10 people and selling the corpses to the rich.
