Hindu sisters donate land to UP eidgah

Kashipur: Fulfilling their late father's last wish, two Hindu sisters donated four bighas worth over Rs 1.5 crore to an Eidgah here, a gesture that touched Muslims so much that they offered prayers for the dead man on Eid.

Kashipur is a small town in Udham Singh Nagar district of Uttarakhand and the gesture by the sisters won praise, at a time when reports of communal tensions are coming in from parts of the country.

Brajnandan Prasad Rastogi, who died 20 years ago, had confided to his close relatives that he wished to donate four bighas of his agricultural land to an Eidgah for its expansion.

Before he could share his last wish with his children, he died in January 2003.

His two daughters Saroj and Anita, who live in Delhi and Meerut, came to know about their father's last wish through relatives recently.

They immediately contacted their brother Rakesh Rastogi, who lives in Kashipur, to seek his consent for it and he agreed readily.

"Honouring father's last wish was our duty. My sisters have done something which will make his soul rest in peace," Rakesh Rastogi said when contacted.

"The two sisters are a living example of communal unity. The Eidgah committee expresses its gratitude to them for the kind gesture. The two sisters will soon be felicitated for what they have done," Hasin Khan of the Eidgah committee said.