10th Parliament· 154 sittings on record · 30,475 speeches · latest 10 June 2026

The Hon. Rauff Hakeem, Attorney-at-Law

Samagi Jana Balawegaya· Mahanuwara· 9 January 2025 ·Oral question: Oral Questions

Justice & Human RightsReligion & Culture
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Rauff Hakeem questioned the change in COVID-19 death-disposal guidelines issued by the Ministry in March 2020, noting that the original guidance allowed both cremation and burial but was altered after the second death, involving a Muslim person. He asked the Minister to identify the officials responsible for the revised circular and said Parliament should be informed for accountability.

Verbatim record (translated)

Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English

¶ 01 Hon. Minister, I earlier asked about this guideline too. On 27 March 2020 the Ministry issued guidance including two options for handling COVID-19 deaths: cremation and burial. After the second death — of a Muslim person on 31 March — the guideline was abruptly changed, issuing another circular. My question seeks accountability: who were responsible officials? Parliament should know.

Provenance

Source
Hansard, Thursday, 9 January 2025 ·No. 1738229262040729 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
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Cite as: The Hon. Rauff Hakeem, Attorney-at-Law. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 9 January 2025. No. 1738229262040729. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/23684