Grieving siblings sue Long Island funeral home for giving their father’s ashes to the WRONG family

Grieving siblings sue Long Island funeral home for giving their father’s ashes to the WRONG family – who scattered them in a river in India

  • Susan and Sunil Sharma are suing the Lake Ronkonkoma Moloney Funeral Home in Long Island for giving their father Sarup Sharma’s ashes to another family
  • They were contacted by the mortuary in November that their dad’s ashes had been given to a woman named Shashi Sharma, who is not related to the siblings
  • They were also told that Shashi’s family had scattered the ashes in a river
  • Susan and Sunil are suing saying it deprived them of ‘solace and comfort’
  • The funeral home apologized and gave Shashi’s family the correct ashes  

Grieving Long Island siblings hoping to scatter their father’s ashes in a traditional Hindu ceremony were informed by the funeral home that they had accidentally sent the ashes to another family.

Susan and Sunil Sharma had planned on mixing the ashes of their father, Sarup Sharma, with their mother’s ashes after the couple died seven months apart last year and then scatter them on the Ganges River in India.

However, Susan and Sunil never got the chance to properly say goodbye to their father because The Lake Ronkonkoma Moloney Funeral Home called them in November to say there had been a mix-up.

Sunil Sharma is suing a Long Island funeral home

Susan and Sunil Sharma are suing a Long Island funeral home after their father’s ashes were given to the wrong family 

According to the New York Post, the funeral home said Saraup’s ashes had accidentally been given to a woman named Shashi Sharma, who had also lost her relative. Shashi has no relation to Susan and Sunil. 

To make matters worse, Susan and Sunil were told that Shashi and her family, thinking they had the correct ashes, had traveled to India to dump the ashes in the Ganges River, the same place where Susan and Sunil wanted to dispose of their parents ashes. The Ganges River is a popular place for families to scatter ashes of loved ones.

Still, Susan and Sunil were devastated by the mix-up saying in a lawsuit that it was ‘reckless and negligent’ and caused them ‘mental anguish’. 

The siblings wrote in the suit that it deprived them of ‘solace and comfort’ and the ‘right to dispose of their father’s remains as they choose’. 

The funeral home said it apologized to both families and are reviewing its practices to make sure the mix-up doesn’t happen again.  

The Lake Ronkonkoma Moloney Funeral Home said it gave the ashes to a woman named Shashi Sharma, who then traveled to India with her family to scatter the ashes, not realizing they were the wrong ones

The Lake Ronkonkoma Moloney Funeral Home said it gave the ashes to a woman named Shashi Sharma, who then traveled to India with her family to scatter the ashes, not realizing they were the wrong ones

‘Once we learned of the situation, we immediately reached out to both families to express our remorse and assure them of our full cooperation during this difficult time,’ the funeral home said.

‘We have reviewed all of our procedures and have taken steps to further strengthen our protocols to ensure that we maintain the full trust and confidence of the families we serve, as we have for the last 85 years.’

Shashi and her family were given the correct ashes and made a second trip to India to scatter them in the river, the Post reports. A spokeswoman for the funeral home said they offered to pay for the family’s trip.  

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