96-yr-old Partition victim fondly remembers Peshawari Pathans

Shubhadeep Choudhury

New Delhi, August 14

He is a victim of the Partition. But rather than bearing any grudge, Trilochan Singh, 96, has fond memories of Muslim residents of the city he had to leave in a huff.

“We used to live in Peshawar. Once the news of Partition violence reached Peshawar, the Pathans descended on our neighbourhood so that no harm comes to us,” Trilochan Singh today said, recounting his experience at the function. “Of course, there were riots and murders, but there was love and affection too,” Trilochan Singh said.

Trilochan Singh’s daughter Rene Singh, who had accompanied her father, said her father is not comfortable with the idea of commemorating the “horrors of Partition”. Trilochan Singh as a teenager took part in the freedom struggle led by Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Abdul Jabbar Khan.

Union Minister Hardeep Puri, whose parents were refugees from West Pakistan, said: “How can they (those against dedicating a day to remember the Partition violence) even suggest that victims of genocides should forget their past? Those who forget history will find, that sooner or later, history will repeat itself.”