Muslim neighbours look after Pandit orphans

Liwdora village, a very far off area in the Dev Sar Assembly segment of South Kashmir, has attracted media attention recently when it adopted four orphaned Kashmiri pandit children. 

This village deposited Rs 55,000 in the bank accounts of the orphaned children of a Kashmiri Hindu family. The villagers will approach Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and Sartaj Madhni, former MLA and uncle of Mehbooba, and request them to provide a government job to one of the four orphaned siblings, Minakshi.

“We have collected all the documents including the qualification certificates of Minakshi. We will approach CM Mehbooba Mufti to provide her a job so that the family can move on. Minakshi, her sister and two brothers lost both their parents in a year,” said neighbours Ali Mohammed and Showkat Ahmad, while talking to The Sunday Guardian over the phone. On Sunday, most of the channels and media persons reported how Liwdora village conducted the last rites of 40-year-old Baby Koul who died exactly after one year of her husband Maharaj Krishan Koul’s death. She left behind two daughters aged 15 and 16 and two sons aged 14 and 7.  

“If the government will not step in, we will still take care of this family,” said Ali Mohammed. Baby Koul, before her death, had told the villagers to take care of her children and not send them out as migrants. However, the siblings’ aunt wants them to come along to a migrant camp in Jammu. But the children feel no urgency to live as migrants.