Police in rural Japan are looking for a thief who has snatched dozens of graveyard urns, many of them carrying the remains of women, after residents reported the ashes of their loved ones had gone missing.
"They can't believe their eyes. Things like this don't usually happen," said a police official in Toyama prefecture, central Japan.
The authorities have received reports of about 20 such incidents in the last year, he said, with many of the missing urns holding the ashes of women.
Notes were found in some of the cases, Jiji news agency reported.
One woman checked on her mother-in-law's urn and found a note saying: "I have it."
Japanese usually cremate the dead and place the ashes in urns, which are stored inside the base of their ancestral gravestone.
Many families hold reunions to visit and clean the graves in mid-August, when the spirits of the deceased are said to return.
