MUMBAI, July 12: Indian Muslims queued for hours on Wednesday to give blood to their Hindu neighbours wounded in the Mumbai train bombings, in a rare show of harmony in a city with a long history of rioting between the two communities.
“We don’t care whether it’s a Hindu or a Muslim who gets our blood as long as we can save them,” said Abdul Khan, one of dozens of Muslim men waiting in line at the blood bank at Siddarth Hospital, near one blast site at Jogeshwari station.
Many see Tuesday’s deadly strikes that killed more than 180 people and wounded more than 700 as the latest in a campaign of violence by Islamist militants fighting Indian rule in the disputed region of Kashmir.
This has long fomented suspicions between Mumbai’s Hindus and the minority Muslim population, and often triggered violent rioting.
Mumbai, a metropolis of 17 million people, has been hit by a series of bomb blasts in the past one and half decades, the worst a series of explosions in 1993 that killed more than 260 people.
But such thoughts were far from Pasha Mian Sheikh’s mind when he threw open the doors of the Islamia Arabia Mosque, metres from the tracks near the suburb of Jogeshwari, to offer shelter, food and water to the walking wounded.
“People are trying to break our harmony but they have failed,” he said of the bombers.
“Hundreds of Muslims yesterday showed a lot of courage and harmony when they helped out their Hindu brothers. Hindus and Muslims are together in Mumbai.”—Reuters
