Muslims help perform last rites of Kashmiri Pandit in Kulgam

At a time when Narendra Modi-led Indian government is hell bent upon creating communal discard in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, the local Muslims in Kulgam district helped in performing the last rites of an 80-year-old Kashmiri Pandit (Hindu).

According to Kashmir Media Service, the local Muslims in Adigam area of the district, setting an example of communal harmony and brotherhood, came together to help perform the last rites of Mohan Lal Pandit.

As only a few of family members of Mohan Lal were around, his local friends and neighbours from the Muslim community took it upon themselves to help perform his last rites, locals said.

The local Muslims organised and performed his last rites and mourned his death as one of their own, said a Muslim neighbor of the deceased. They shouldered his coffin and arranged wood for the cremation, he said.

“He was one of us. We never thought of him as a KP (Kashmiri Pandit). We arranged everything needed for the cremation,” said Ghulam Mohiuddin Dar, a middle-aged man from the locality.

“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 Mohan Lal’s residence to sympathise with the bereaved family members.

Lal’s relatives also said the Muslims of the area always help them in times of need and they don’t intervene in the religious affairs. “They (Muslims) sit at a distance when a ritual has to be done by a Pandit, but the rest of the arrangements are arranged by them,” they said.