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When Rakhi, a 44-year-old woman from Chhattisgarh, passed away at a rehabilitation centre in Thiruvananthapuram, there was no family around to fulfil her last wish, to have her final rites conducted according to Hindu tradition. Stepping in where no one else could, local ward member T Safeer, a practising Muslim, performed the rituals himself.
Rakhi had been a resident of the Benedict Menni Psycho Social Rehabilitation Centre for two and a half years, after being shifted from the Kuthiravattam Mental Hospital. She had been battling cancer in its final stage and died on Friday, September 12.
“I had met her when she was taken to the hospital before her death. As the local ward member, I felt it was my duty to perform her last rites if no one else was there. I thought of her like my mother and did what any son would do,” Safeer told TNM.
This was not the first time Safeer had stepped into such a role. He recalled another instance when a Hindu patient named Sudakshina passed away. “Her daughter was mentally ill and unable to perform the rituals, so I did them myself. I considered her like my own mother and later immersed her ashes too,” he said.
Rakhi’s cremation was carried out at Shanti Theeram, Kazhakoottam, with the help of Safeer’s friends and staff at the facility. A video of the rites, uploaded to Facebook without his knowledge, soon went viral. Safeer, however, remains humble about the response.
“Back in the day, such acts wouldn’t have been celebrated, they were common. Our forefathers lived this way. We must look at a person as human first, not through the lens of religion. If my act inspires even one person, I am happy,” he said.
Safeer also added that his community had only encouraged him. “Nobody from my religion told me I was wrong. In fact, people appreciated it. My faith teaches me to respect the dead, and that is what I tell my children too. Religion should never come in the way of that.”