Muslim neighbours help perform last rites of Kashmiri Pandit in Pulwama

SRINAGAR — Local Muslims in southern Pulwama village came together to help perform the last rites of an 85-year-old Kashmiri Pandit who died on Wednesday evening.

Setting an example of communal harmony and brotherhood, local Muslims in Sirnoo village of south Kashmir’s Pulwama came together to help perform the last rites of their 85-year-old Pandit neighbour.

Makhan Lal, a resident of Sirnoo village – about a kilometer from Pulwama town, was an employee of BSNL and a known figure in the village.

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

The local Muslims organised and performed his 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 was one of us. We never thought of him as a KP. We arranged everything needed for the cremation,” said Attaullah, a middle-aged man from the locality, said.

He has been living here among us for many years. “We have lived alongside each other and done everything together,” said another local.

Makhan Lal’s family is one of the seven Kashmiri Pandit families from the village that did not migrate in the 1990s but opted to stay on in their native village.

Pandits from the locality have also thanked the local Muslim neighbours for helping them during all even and odd times.