Updated: Aug 30, 2020
Just the other day I asked my mother,
‘agar Edhi aur uski Foundation na hoti, tou is plane crash mai shaheed honey walon ki kon madad kerta?’ (if it wasn’t for Edhi and his Foundation, who’d have helped recover the bodies of those deceased in the place crash, last week in Pakistan).
The Edhi Sardkhana (Edhi Morgue), in Karachi, Pakistan, houses bodies of anybody who dies in an accident or succumbs to terrorism. It also extends help to families who live out of country and need time to return. Haya Fatima Iqbal’s third documentary, ‘Lawaris: Karachi’s Unidentified Dead’, takes a look at how people working at the Edhi Morgue work towards restoring dignity to the dead. It documents how unidentified bodies, without an owner (lawaris) are brought to the morgue and efforts are made to trace their families and notify them. It has also gotten shortlisted in the Short Film Category at the One World Media Awards. In many ways then, the Edhi Morgue is as generous as Edhi’s philosophy, and like the living it gives due respect to the dead as well.