India: Muslim village conducts last rites of Hindu neighbour
”Early on Sunday, we set off along with his family for the last rites and cremated him after all the Hindu rituals. We don't think anything exemplary has been done. We had never in our village, distinguished between his family and us. He was one of our own,” Firdaus said.
urdwan: In an exemplary example of communal harmony, on Sunday, Muslim neighbours of a 70-year-old Hindu man in the village of Jamuria in West Burdwan conducted his funeral along with his relatives.
It turned out that Ramdhani Rajak’s family was the only Hindu household among the 230 Muslim families in the village of Desher Mahan, about 200 km from the city. While his elder son was living in Kolkata, Rajak was living with his wife and a mentally disabled son.
Almost 10 hours after falling from a tree, the 70-year-old died of head injuries after being denied care at five private hospitals in West Burdwan, Durgapur and Jamuria because he had not been checked by Covid. The neighbours brought him from one hospital to another, collecting wood after his death and bringing the body to the banks of the Ajoy River, where rituals were performed by his elder son.
“I am profoundly grateful to my neighbours. If they hadn’t been next to us, it would have been hard to do it all on our own. Not only did they try their best to give my father proper treatment, but they arranged everything after his death and even paid for the funeral,” said Ramvilas, who was only able to reach Jamuria on Saturday evening from his Salt Lake home.
As he used to wash and iron clothes and deliver them back to the households for living, locals said Rajak was well-known among villagers. “When we learned that he was involved in an accident, we immediately took him to the hospital. In Ranigunj and Durgapur, we visited five hospitals, but none admitted him. Some said there was no ICCU available, while others said that without a Covid test, he could not be accepted. By the time one hospital admitted him, he had died,“ said a neighbour, Sheikh Firdaus.
They took the body back to the village and set up a tent outside his home, Firdaus said. ”Early on Sunday, we set off along with his family for the last rites and cremated him after all the Hindu rituals. We don’t think anything exemplary has been done. We had never in our village, distinguished between his family and us. He was one of our own,” Firdaus said.
