Kerala: Temple hall hosts Eid prayers for members of flooded mosque
THRISSUR: In a refreshing development, the hall attached to temple at Eravathur near Mala became the venue for the Eid prayers on Wednesday for the devotees from the nearby mosque which is still remaining flooded.
The office-bearers of the Purappullikkavu Rathneswari Temple run by SNDP Yogam happily volunteered when they realized that priests at the nearby Kochukadavu Juma Masjid were looking for a place to organize the community prayer session on the Eid day.
"We were hoping that the water will recede by Wednesday and we will be able to offer the Eid prayers at the Masjid itself . However, two days back itself we realised that this may not be possible. When we discussed the issue with the temple office-bearers, they immediately offered their hall for the prayers,’’ said P A Khalid, president of the Masjid Mahallu committee.
"We thought offering the temple hall for Eid prayers will be an expression of the secular lineage of this land. We had also arranged all other facilities like water for cleaning for the devotees who had come for offering prayers," said P K Sabu, who is the president of SNDP Union Mala.
About 200 Muslims had assembled to offer prayers at the temple hall. "We were very happy to hold the prayer session there, and we spent about two hours there," Khalid said.
"The catastrophic flood had united us transcending all the boundaries of caste, religion and politics. Offering of Eid prayers at the temple hall reinforced this realization of human unity given by the flood," said Jijikumar, a SNDP Union activist and a Dubai-based NRI who had played an active role in organizing the Eid prayer session at the temple hall.
The mosques in the district had scaled down the Eid festivities in view of the sufferings caused by the flood to the people as a whole.
courtesy : timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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MP boat tragedy: Death toll climbs to 13; body of last missing person recovered
Jabalpur (PTI): The bodies of a five-year-old boy and his uncle were recovered from Bargi Dam in Madhya Pradesh's Jabalpur district on Sunday morning, raising the death toll in the cruise boat tragedy to 13, police said.
The boat, around 20 years old and operated by the state tourism department, capsized during a storm on Thursday evening.
"The bodies of Mayuram (5) and his uncle Kamraj (around 50), an employee of the Ordnance Factory in Khamaria, were found floating and were fished out of the dam," Bargi Sub Divisional Officer of Police Anjul Ayank Mishra told PTI over the phone.
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All 13 missing persons identified have now been accounted for, he said, adding the bodies were sent to a government hospital for postmortem.
Teams comprising around 20 Army divers airlifted from Agra, along with personnel from the National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force and local divers, were involved in the search operation, the police said.
Of the 41 identified passengers on board the vessel, 28 were rescued after the incident, according to the police.
The CCTV footage near the boarding point showed 43 people heading towards the boat, though the identities of 41 passengers have been confirmed so far, they said.
The state government on Friday ordered a probe into the incident and dismissed three crew members. It also banned the operation of similar vessels in the state.
