Muslim neighbours help perform last rites of Kulgam’s 75-year-old Hindu woman

Kulgam: In a display of communal harmony, local Muslims in Begam village came together to help perform the last rites of their 75-year-old Hindu neighbour on Tuesday.

Lajwanti Devi, a Kashmiri Rajput Hindu, died Tuesday morning after a brief illness.

   

She had spent a lot of time in the company of Muslims.

As only a few of his family members were around, Lajwanti’s neighbours and family friends from the Muslim community took it upon themselves to help perform her last rites.

The local Muslims organised and performed her last rites and mourned her death as one of their own.

They shouldered her coffin and arranged wood for her cremation in the village.

Hundreds of Muslim villagers participated.

“She was one among us. We never thought of her as being someone from another community,” said Ghulam Hassan, an elderly man as the neighbours arranged everything needed for her cremation.

Another local said, “She and her family have been living here among us for many years. We have lived alongside each other and done everything together. In her final journey also, we are with her.”

Rajinder Singh, the son of the deceased woman, said that Kashmiri Muslims and Hindus were equal and the kind of bond they shared was unique.

“There is no match to the brotherhood and communal harmony and this gesture by Muslims is one of its kind,” he said.

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