The father of a Jammu-based Sikh girl who has offered to donate her kidney to a Muslim friend has issued a passionate video appeal, trying to dissuade her and requesting the authorities and the people at large to stop her.

But Manjot Singh Kohli, a young rights activist whose gesture has turned her into a hero for many in a state divided by region and religion, appeared in no mood to relent.

Udhampur resident Gurdeep Singh said in the video, posted on Sunday, that Manjot was taking too much of a risk with her life and told her that her father needed her more than her friend did.

“I will donate both my kidneys because I have seen everything in life but you are yet to start yours. At 22, you are donating your kidney and giving more grief to your papa. Your mom is dead. What will I do, who will feed us?” Gurdeep, a businessman who apparently suffers from a disability, said.

Manjot volunteered to donate her kidney to friend Samreen Akhtar, a resident of Pir Panchal in Jammu, when most of Samreen’s relatives were reluctant to do so. A hospital in Srinagar is delaying the surgery because of Gurdeep’s reservations.

Gurdeep, who lost his wife four years ago in an accident that left him badly injured, is seen breaking down in the video. He claimed he was “75 percent disabled” and could not even walk. “I am paralysed,” he said at one point.

Manjot signalled she wouldn’t relent. “Saving life is more important than saving relations,” she wrote on Facebook, apparently after watching the video.

“Yari teri yaari ko… Maine to Khuda maana… Yaad karegi dunia… Tera mera afsana (Friend, your friendship is God to me. The world will remember our story),” she wrote.

Manjot told The Telegraph she couldn’t live at peace if she didn’t help Samreen. “A life full of problems is better than one full of regrets. A (dead) friend can never come back but relations can be mended,” she said.

She said her father was not paralytic but was succumbing to emotion. “I don’t want to malign my father…. Do you think I’m a fool and (lack the) sense to think of my family?”

Gurdeep appealed to “Governor sahab, high court judge, soura (hospital) director, doctors who are removing her kidney and the lakhs of people who are appreciating her (to) please have mercy on this father”.

He said that Manjot, accompanied by Samreen, had told him on November 10 that she was donating her kidney. He said he had opposed the decision and alleged that some people were misguiding her.

Manjot said she had a brother who lived in Delhi. She hoped the hospital would let her donate her kidney.