Raja Syed Rather
Ganderbal, Apr 21: The Muslim neighbourhood in Wussan locality of central Kashmir’s Ganderbal helped perform the last rites of an elderly Kashmiri Pandit on Friday.
Avtar Krishan Koul, 75, son of Madhav Krishan Koul, breathed his last in her home at Wussan in the wee hours on Friday, plunging the whole locality into mourning, eyewitnesses said.
Soon after the news of her death spread, local Muslims made special arrangements to perform his last rites. They also ferried firewood for help the family to cremate the deceased.
“It is in our Islam to take care of neighbours irrespective of their religion,” Ghulam Hassan, a local resident, said.
Another local said, “Avtar was a remarkable person who always went above and beyond to help those in need. His kindness and generosity knew no bounds, and he was always willing to lend a helping hand, no matter what time of day or night it was.”
“As a health worker, Avtar was truly dedicated to his profession. He saw it as his duty to care for the well-being of others, and he took this responsibility very seriously. He spent countless hours working tirelessly to help people in his community, never once seeking recognition or praise for his efforts,” said a native from his village.
In the Wussan locality, around a dozen Pandit families are residing who did not migrate from the Kashmir Valley during the early 1990s and instead decided to stay put. Since then, the two communities have lived in the locality in harmony and have always shown compassion to each other.
After militancy erupted in the valley in the early ‘90s, the Pandit community was forced to migrate from Kashmir. A very small percentage of them, however, stayed back and are living in many parts of Kashmir.
