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.