Who said Sakhubai was all alone? When the 60-year-old, who lived by herself in Malad East’s Squatters’ Colony, slipped into death’s cold embrace at a hospital on Thursday, she was surrounded by the people who adored her and respected her religious beliefs, regardless of their own. So, yesterday, in a touching display of communal harmony, nearly a dozen of her Muslim neighbours came forward to claim her body and performed her last rituals according to Hindu customs at the Oshiwara cemetery.

Touching display: Sakhu Kiran Singh’s (below) neighbours from Malad East’s Squatters’ Colony take her body for cremation. Pic/Vedant Mane