Punjab: Sikhs, Hindus join in to build mosque in Muktsar village

BATHINDA: Amid the shrill communal rhetoric all around nowadays, a gesture by Hindu and Sikh residents of Khunan Khurd village in Punjab’s Muktsar district is proof that social harmony and a sense of brotherhood is very much alive in India.
The two communities contributed money and building material to construct a mosque for the five Muslim families living in the village, who had no place to offer namaz. When the mosque finally got ready on Tuesday, all the residents cutting across faiths joined Muslims to inaugurate it.
The villagers also offered siropas (robes of honour) to the Muslims. The Muslim families offered the first namaz in the newly-built mosque on Tuesday in the presence of the villagers.
“There were only five Muslim families in the village and they had no place to offer namaz. The waqf board had provided a small piece of land but the families did not have resources to construct a mosque. Residents of the village, both Hindus and Sikhs, then came forward and helped their Muslim brethren to construct the mosque,” Punjab Shahi Imam Mohammad Usman Rehmani, who visited the village, told TOI.
Khunan Khurd resident Mohinder Singh said the Muslims were not in a position to build the mosque on their own and the other residents had happily contributed and joined the festivities when the place of worship was inaugurated on Tuesday.
In December last year, a Sikh family of Bakhatgarh village in Barnala district had donated a piece of land to 15 Muslim families of the village to construct a mosque.
Earlier, both Sikhs and Hindus have provided land for building mosques, including at Machhike village in Moga district, when the old mosque was demolished for road widening.