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Indian, Pakistani siblings reunite 75 years after Partition
This year marks the 75th anniversary of Partition, during which sectarian bloodshed killed possibly more than one million people, families like Sika's were cleaved apart and two independent nations -- Pakistan and India -- were created.
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In this picture taken on August 2, 2022, Indian Sikh labourer Sika Khan (C) talks to his elder brother Sadiq Khan in Pakistan, via a mobile video call at a village in Bathinda. Tears of joy rolled down his wizened cheeks when Indian Sika Khan met his Pakistani brother for the first time since being separated by Partition in 1947. Sika was just six months old when he and his elder brother Sadiq Khan were torn apart as Britain split the subcontinent at the end of colonial rule.
(AFP /Narinder Nanu)
T
ears of joy rolled down his wizened cheeks when Indian Sika Khan met his Pakistani brother for the first time since being separated by Partition in 1947.
Sikh laborer Sika was just six months old when he and his elder brother Sadiq Khan were torn apart as Britain split the subcontinent at the end of colonial rule.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of Partition, during which sectarian bloodshed killed possibly more than one million people, families like Sika's were cleaved apart and two independent nations -- Pakistan and India -- were created.
Sika's father and sister were killed in communal massacres, but Sadiq, just 10 years old, managed to flee to Pakistan.
"My mother could not bear the trauma and jumped into the river and killed herself," Sika said at his simple brick house in Bhatinda, a district in the western Indian state of Punjab, which bore the brunt of Partition violence.
"I was left at the mercy of villagers and some relatives who brought me up."
Ever since he was a child, Sika yearned to find out about his brother, the only surviving member of his family. But he failed to make headway until a doctor in the neighborhood offered to help three years ago.
