JAIPUR: In a heartwarming display of communal harmony, the last rites of a 67-year-old Hindu woman, who was living alone, were performed by a Muslim youth in Rajasthan's Bhilwara.
Shanti Devi, a resident of Jangi Chowk in Gandhi Nagar area of Bhilwara, had been unwell for some time and was undergoing treatment at the Mahatma Gandhi Hospital where she died on Sunday.
She had been living alone since 2018 after the death of her three daughters and a son.
With no one from her family present to shoulder the responsibility, 30-year-old Asgar Ali Khan, who grew up seeing Shanti Devi as a mother figure, came forward.
"She would love me like a mother since my childhood. She would ask me every day if I had eaten or how I was feeling. After she passed away, I felt like I had lost my mother again," he said with teary eyes.
"My parents passed away long ago, and Shanti Devi filled that void. Even during Covid, when she was unwell, I took care of her. On Sunday, after she passed away, I felt like I had lost my mother again," Khan said Supported by his neighbours and friends -- Ashfaq Qureshi, Abid Qureshi, Shakir Pathan, Firoz Qureshi, Inayat and Zabid, Khan arranged for the funeral, carried the bier on the shoulders, and performed the cremation according to Hindu rituals.
Local Muslim women also broke down during the final procession, grieving for the woman they had seen as part of their colony.
Relatives of Shanti Devi arrived later from Madhya Pradesh and joined the final journey.
Khan said Shati Devi's ashes would be immersed at Triveni Sangam in Prayagraj or Matrikundia in Chittorgarh district, in keeping with her wishes.