10:46am Monday 13th August 2007
By Asian Image reporter
Ahmed Din Ansari was aged 16 in 1947 and working as a volunteer in Malerkotla civic hospital.
"In 1947 I was 16 and attending school. When word broke out that Muslims wanted there own separate country rioting broke out in India.
"This meant that all schools had to close. I lived in Malerkotla a Muslim Pathan state of Punjab.
While the whole of India was in flames Malerkotla did not witness a single incidence of violence.
"As word spread of this fact all injured in the rioting would come to this Punjab state for treatment. I took on work in the civil hospital as a volunteer.
"There I bore witness to such carnage, scenes that I shall never forget.
"The family then left India for Lyallpur (founded by James Lyall 1892, later known as Faisalabad). Was Independence a good thing?
"The partition cost tens of thousands of lives but for Muslims it was the only way as unity between Sikh, Hindu and Muslims had become an impossibility.
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