The weight of a young son dead would have been unbearable for Haladhar Let had it not been for Abdul Gaffar.

When Haladhar lost his 18-year-old son in faraway Pune and had given up hope of bringing the body back to his native Birbhum, Gaffar stepped in.

Gaffar, a labour contractor who had sent the father-son to Pune to work at a construction site, paid the entire Rs 80,000 needed to embalm the body and transport it around 1,940km to dusty Kurumgram village in an ambulance.

Rudra, who had complained of abdominal pain at the time of boarding the train to Pune on Friday, had to be admitted to a hospital near the railway station after reaching the Maharashtra city on Sunday and died within a few hours of cardiac arrest.

Desperate to bring the body back home, Haladhar reached out to his friends and relatives, but the cost of embalming the body and transporting it was too steep.

“Gaffar came forward to help me.... He arranged everything with the help of other labourers he had sent to Pune and also paid the entire Rs 80,000. I have no words to express my gratitude to him,” the migrant worker from Nalhati’s Kurumgram, 240km from Calcutta, said after reaching on Tuesday evening. Rudra was cremated early on Wednesday.

Gaffar — a man of modest means but who, villagers said, never shied away from helping others — told The Telegraph: “I felt sad after learning about the death of the kid.... Haladhar was crying inconsolably as he didn’t know how to bring his son’s body back from Pune, a new place for him.”

“I had just had my iftar... I thought it was my duty as a pious Muslim to help Haladhar in this time of distress. It was not about money, it was about humanity,” the 54-year-old added.

Sanjib Sinha, a social worker from Kurumgram, said the entire village was thankful to Gaffar.

“Haladhar has told us how Gaffar helped him every step of the way.... Although he promised Gaffar to pay him back bit by bit from his wages, Gaffar refused. We are all thankful to Gaffar,” Sinha said.

“At a time when we are used to hearing stories of conflict among religions, this stands out,” he added.

Gaffar, a resident of nearby Bhadrapur village, has been sending labourers to different parts of the country for the last decade. Haladhar, who has earlier worked in Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh, had accepted Gaffar’s offer to work on a real estate project in Pune for a daily wage of Rs 800 and accommodation.

Locals in Kurumgram said Gaffar could not be called wealthy by any stretch of the imagination.

“He has a modest living.... The main thing is his intent. He has always been helpful to others,” said Samirul Islam, president of an outfit that works for the welfare of migrant workers.

According to him, Gaffar’s gesture would help challenge the perception that labour contractors always exploit unsuspecting migrant workers by taking them to other states and earning commission from their hard-earned money.

“While some of them do engage in corrupt practices, there are also people like Gaffar who not only help people earn a livelihood, but also save them in times of crisis,” Samirul said.