Pulwama, Nov 23 : In yet another instance of communal harmony, th local Muslims in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district helped perform the last rites of an 85-year-old Kashmiri Pandit lady, who died on Wednesday evening.
Setting an example of communal harmony and brotherhood, the local Muslims in Tahab village of Pulwama came together to help perform the last rites of their Pandit neighbour.
Chunni Ji (85), wife of Nirmal Kumar Malla resident of Tahab village about five kilometres from Pulwama town was a housewife; her husband, a medical officer in the Army, had died several years before.
As only a few of his family members were around, Chuni’s local friends and neighbors from the Muslim community took it upon themselves to help perform his last rites.
The local Muslims organized and performed her last rites and mourned her death as one of their own. They shouldered her coffin and arranged wood for the cremation in the village.
“She was one of us. We never thought of her as a KP. We arranged everything needed for the cremation,”Mohd Subhan, a local resident told the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO).
“She has been living here among us for many years. We have lived alongside each other and done everything together,” said another local while participating in her last rites, which were performed in local ground.
“We share a bond that goes back hundreds of years. When we heard about the sad news, all of us rushed to console the family members and make preparations for her last rites,” he added.
“Like we are visiting families to Muslims when anyone dies there, we visited here as well as humanity is above everything,” he added.
Locals said that this family has never left Kashmir despite facing many problems and it was their duty to help them.
Chuni’s relatives also said that Muslims of the village always help them in times of need and they don’t intervene in religious affairs.
“They (Muslims) sit at a distance when a ritual has to be done by a Pandit, but the rest of the arrangements were arranged by them,” they said.
It is pertinent to mention here that Chunni Ji was mother of noted doctor and former CMO Shopian Dr Ramesh Kumar Malla—(KNO)
