At a time when Narendra Modi-led fascist Indian government is hell bent upon stoking communal discard in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, in an exemplary display of communal harmony helped in performing the last rites of Kashmiri Pandit in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the 70-year-old Kashmiri Pandit, Parry Lal Pandit, died on Tuesday in Batapora Wahibugh of the district.
Locals said that as only a few of family members of Lal were around, his local friends and neighbours from the Muslim community took it upon themselves to help perform his last rites.
A local resident Javaid Ahmad told the media that the local Muslims organised and performed Lal’s last rites and mourned his death as one of their own. They shouldered his coffin and arranged wood for the cremation in the village, he said.
A middle-aged man from the locality, Mohammad Ramzan said, “He was one of us. We never thought of him as a KP. We arranged everything needed for the cremation.”
“He has been living here among us for many years. We have lived alongside each other and done everything together,” he said, adding that people from other adjacent areas also visited the residence to sympathise with the bereaved family members.—KMS
