Singh was left out in India along with his sister while his Muslim parents migrated to Pakistan at the time of Partition.
Islamabad: Jalandhar-based Sikh man Amarjit Singh’s happiness knew no bounds when he met his Muslim sister from Pakistan at Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, 75 years after he was separated from his family at the time of Partition, a PTI report in The Tribune, Chandigarh, says
Singh was left out in India along with his sister while his Muslim parents migrated to Pakistan at the time of Partition.
All eyes went teary as wheelchair-bound Singh had an emotional meeting with his sister Kulsoom Akhtar at Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur in Pakistan’s Punjab province on Wednesday.
Singh arrived in Pakistan via the Wagah border with a visa to meet his sister, The Express Tribune newspaper reported.
Kulsoom, 65, could not control her emotions after seeing Singh.
Both hugged each other and kept crying. She had travelled from her hometown in Faisalabad along with her son Shahzad Ahmed and other family members to meet her brother.
Talking to the newspaper, Kulsoom said that her parents migrated to Pakistan from a suburb in Jalandhar in 1947, leaving behind her brother and a sister.
Kulsoom said she was born in Pakistan and used to hear about her lost brother and sister from her mother. She said that her mother used to cry whenever she remembered her missing children.
She said that she did not expect that she would ever be able to meet her brother and sister.
However, a few years ago, a friend of her father Sardar Dara Singh came to Pakistan from India and also met her.
Her mother told Sardar Dara Singh about her son and the daughter she left behind in India. She also told him the name of their village and the location of their house.
Sardar Dara Singh then visited her house in Padawan village and informed her that her son was alive but her daughter was dead.
Her son was named Amarjit Singh who was adopted by a Sikh family in 1947.
After getting the brother’s information, Kulsoom connected with Singh on WhatsApp and later decided to meet.
Kulsoom, despite her severe back pain, mustered the courage to travel to Kartarpur just to meet her brother.
Singh said that when he first learned that his real parents were in Pakistan and were Muslims, it was a shock to him. However, he comforted his heart that many families were separated from each other in addition to his own family.
*********************************************************************
Readers
These are extraordinary times. All of us have to rely on high-impact, trustworthy journalism. And this is especially true of the Indian Diaspora. Members of the Indian community overseas cannot be fed with inaccurate news.
Pravasi Samwad is a venture that has no shareholders. It is the result of an impassioned initiative of a handful of Indian journalists spread around the world. We have taken the small step forward with the pledge to provide news with accuracy, free from political and commercial influence. Our aim is to keep you, our readers, informed about developments at ‘home’ and across the world that affect you.
Please help us to keep our journalism independent and free.
In these difficult times, to run a news website requires finances. While every contribution, big or small, will makes a difference, we request our readers to put us in touch with advertisers worldwide. It will be a great help.
For more information: pravasisamwad00@gmail.com