Abid Bashir
Srinagar (NVI): Members of the Muslim community at Kuloosa village in Bandipora district of north Kashmir today helped in performing the last rites of an elderly Kashmiri Pandit woman who passed away this morning.
Amid the coronavirus lockdown, scores of Muslims including women assembled at the village in Bandipora to perform the last rites of Rani Bhat, a Kashmiri Pandit woman. Witnesses said that Muslim women were seen mourning over her death as the deceased was close to them for years.
Soon after the news of death spread in the village, Muslims made special arrangements for performing the last rites of the deceased. They also arranged firewood for helping the KP family to cremate the deceased. “It is our duty to help neighbours irrespective of their religion,” Abdul Aziz, a village elder told NVI.
He said that the woman passed away in the morning. “Keeping social distancing norms in mind, we visited the bereaved family one by one and expressed our condolences,” he said. “We have not helped them today. We have been helping them for years and they have helped us too. We will always help them and always live with them and keep our age-old tradition of communal harmony intact.
In Kuloosa village of Bandipora, there are almost over a dozen KP families, who didn’t leave during the mass exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from the Valley including members of Kashmiri Pandit community in 1990. Since then, the two communities have been living in the locality like one family, true friends and good neighbours.
Muslims in the area were visiting the family of the deceased, while maintaining social distancing, to offer condolences. The body of the woman was carried for last rites by the village elders, youth and was cremated in the presence of her family members and a large number of locals living in the village.
