JOIN USFasting Muslim driver cremates Hindu Covid victim in J&K’s Rajouri
The Covid-19 pandemic may have brought endless miseries to the world, but at the same time it has also brought communities closer to deal with the crisis.
In one such example, a Muslim ambulance driver, Mir Ahmad, in remote border area of Mendhar in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir cremated a homeless woman on Wednesday. The woman had died of Covid-19 in Mendhar sub-district hospital.
The unidentified woman who was reportedly mentally unsound was found suffering with respiratory distress on a road in Mendhar on Monday and was taken to a hospital by Ahmad where she was under treatment before she died on Wednesday morning.
“I saw a frail woman, who was writhing with pain, on a roadside and decided to take her to hospital in my ambulance. At the hospital she tested positive and for the two days I was taking care of her besides doing my duty,” Ahmad, who works as a driver in Jammu and Kashmir health and family welfare department, told DH over the phone.
After she died on Wednesday, he said, nobody came forward to cremate her body due to the Covid-19 scare. “I motivated my other three friends – Adil Majeed, Shakeel Ahmad and Munner Ahmad – safai wallas (sweepers) in the hospital to accompany me to the crematorium so that we can perform her last rites,” Ahmad said.
After motivating his friends and providing them protective gears, the other challenge before Ahmad was to arrange wood for the cremation. The local administration helped them in arranging the required things for the cremation.
Ahmad, who was fasting, said every religion teaches to help each other. “It doesn’t matter whether I help a Hindu, a Muslim or a Sikh who is in need of help. We are humans and humanity is the biggest religion,” he added.
In the prevailing pandemic situation when even performance of the last rites of Covid-19 victims is getting difficult, it is corona warriors like Ahmed, who are winning hearts of people through their selfless work.