Muslim woman to bring back Christian man’s ashes

A Kerala social worker in Dubai will soon travel to her home state with the ashes of a Tamil Nadu native who died of Covid there, two years ago.

Spreading the message of communal harmony, the social worker, Thahira Kallumurikkal, is from the Muslim community, while the deceased Rajkumar Thankappan was a Christian hailing from the Kanyakumari district.

Thankappan passed away on May 14, 2020. His children were around 18 when he passed away and were unaware of the formalities to bring back his mortal remains.

When the kids’ plight was shared on social media, Kottayam native Sijo Paul, who worked in the UAE, decided to help the children. He collected the ashes of Thankappan from the UAE authorities on behalf of his family, but couldn’t get them to India due to work commitments. Later, Thahira, an audiologist in UAE, came across the plight of Thankappan’s family as part of her social work. She got in touch with Sijo and initiated the formalities to bring the ashes to India. She is also supporting the education of Thankappan’s children.

Thahira told DH over the phone that the religion or caste of the deceased never bothered her. The plight of his children is what moved her.

She is being widely appreciated on social media for her actions, spreading the message of communal harmony.

Thahira plans to come down to Thiruvananthapuram from UAE in a week or two and hand over the ashes to Thankappan’s children, Beutilin Rexy and Adlin Rahul.