Rafiabad:Keeping alive the spirit of communal harmony, Muslims helped in performing the last rites of a Kashmiri Pandit in North Kashmir’s Panzlla Rafiabad on Friday.

When the news of passing away of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru who is elder brother of senior BJP Leader Desh Kumar Nehru spread, Muslims of the area rushed to his house amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Besides consoling the Hindu family of the village, the local Muslims helped in fetching wood to cremate the deceased.

Ignoring all fears of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, dozens of Muslim neighbours went to residence of the deceased and joined the mourning in the true tradition of Hindu-Muslim brotherhood for which Kashmir has been known for centuries.

Muslim women were seen in tears when they came to condole the death of the Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru.

The deceased had chosen to stay back in the Valley after the eruption of militancy more than 30 years back.

“We were one and shared a great brotherhood. Our families used to visit each other, eat together and we always remained together in happiness and sorrow. We lost a friend, well-wisher and a noble soul and the entire area is saddened by his death,” told a resident of Panzlla Rafiabad while talking to Greater Now.

“Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru was an elderly gentleman, who did not migrate out of Kashmir when militancy erupted. He always had good relations with the Muslims of the area and his son works in a private MNC in Delhi and everybody knows him,”told Mohd Amin Mir while talking to Greater Now.

Mir also added that in the past too Muslims had lent a helping hand to the non-migrant Kashmiri Pandits in every situation.

Once again, the residents of Panzlla village proved that despite the distances created between the two communities by militancy and religious fanaticism, Kashmir’s core of secular, pluralistic culture remains intact.(Greater Now)