[Reader-list] Muslims help perform last rites of a Pandit in Kashmir

[Kshmendra Kaul]

"There was nobody to perform the funeral."
 
It is a commentary on the Islamisation of Kashmir under garb of "Aazadi" that led to creating of a situation which forced almost all of the Non-Muslims out of Kashmir.
 
It is a commentary on the near erasure and extinction of a unique socio-cultural-religious group that was indigenous to and rooted in Kashmir.
 
Kshmendra

--- On Sun, 8/30/09, Junaid <justjunaid at gmail.com> wrote:


From: Junaid <justjunaid at gmail.com>
Subject: [Reader-list] Muslims help perform last rites of a Pandit in Kashmir
To: reader-list at sarai.net
Date: Sunday, August 30, 2009, 12:48 AM


Does this fit into any debate here?

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/India/Kashmiri-Muslims-perform-funeral-of-Hindu-man-/articleshow/4948967.cms

Kashmiri Muslims perform last rites of a Kashmiri Pandit

SRINAGAR: In a unique display of communal harmony, Muslims neighbours
here performed the last rites of a Hindu man who stayed back when most
of the Pandit families fled during the early 1990s when Islamist
insurgency erupted in Jammu and Kashmir.

Bhola Nath Kachroo of Srinagar, who was living with his wife and a
daughter here, died Friday after an illness and had nobody to perform
his funeral.

The family was devastated when Kachroo, who his neighbour said was
"very old", passed away. There was no other Pandit family nearby to
help them.

But, Muslims in the area helped the family in performing the last
rites of Kachroo. They made arrangements for the last rites and also
erected tents for Kachroo's friends and relatives who had gathered to
mourn the death.

"There was nobody to perform the funeral. We were equally saddened to
lose an elderly person in our neighbourhood. We gathered and performed
the last rites without considering what faith we follow," said Ghulam
Mohammed Bhat, secretary of the Muslim Welfare Society.

Most of the Hindu families migrated from the Kashmir Valley in the
wake of insurgency fuelled by Islamic fundamentalists, but Kachroo and
his family stayed back.

"We came as humans to help our mourning neighbours. They didn't leave
when other Pandits fled and we owe responsibilities to this family,"
said Ali Mohammed, another neighbour.
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