LAHORE, Aug 14: Sixty years ago, Haji Barkat Ali would cross Wagah at least once a week to reach Pul Kunjrian near Dhanoi Kalan village where a market was arranged on a weekly basis.
“There was nothing significant at the site where the Wagah checkpoint is now located,” recalls the 88-year-old resident of Vara Jamite Wala, situated some two-and-a-half kilometres south of Wagah along Maniara Road. “On foggy mornings and moonless nights, it was difficult even to locate Bhawan Chak, a Sikh village nearby. Things have completely changed now.”
“I still remember Inder Singh Rora, the unbeatable kabbadi player from Pind Chappa, for his wit. I still miss friends like Puran, Jawala, Heera and Chanan of the same village.
“There was no Sikh or Hindu family at Vara Jamite Wala, Vara Vaziray Da and Vara Molay Vasian Da. The whole population of Pind Chappa, Bhawan Chak, Nathoke and Maniara crossed over to India taking their cattle and other belongings with them. The people who came here from across the border were empty-handed. They had lost everything, even their kith and kin, but they were happy,” recalls Barkat who can no more move around without the assistance.
Malik Ibrahim, 10 at the time, used to board a train from Wagha daily to reach his high school in Atari in the morning and usually catch another train to reach home in the evening.
“The school at our village had classes up to grade IV,” Ibrahim recollects as he sits at a hotel near Rangers checkpost at Warha Pul along the BRB canal. “I was admitted to the Atari high school after passing the standard IV. Three months or so later, the 1947 riots began and Atari went to India and became a no-go area for us. My studies were suspended for a couple of years.”
In those days, the ticket checkers and guards of the trains stopping at Wagha and Atari railway stations never asked any child with a wooden slate, ink pot and some books in hands to pay the fare. “Still, at times, I would prefer to accompany older children who would return home on foot while tasting sugarcane and picking vegetables in the fields and bathing in the canal on the way,” says the 70-year-old resident of Wagha before he engages another man having tea nearby. “Rafiq! Tainu yaad painda aay saday pind wich kinay Sikh sun saintali di ujar toon pelay?” (Do you remember how many Sikhs were there in our village before the 1947 riots?)
The overall population of Wagha village, replies Rafiq, was not more than 5,000 and the Muslims numbered 2,000 or so. “Only Murad Bakhsh and Pir Bakhsh, sons of Satia, Lumberdar Noor Din, son of Dulla, Din Muhammad and Rahim Bakhsh, sons of Roshan Din, Ilm Din and Allah Din, sons of Sidhay Shah, owned land in the village. The rest of the land belonged to the Sikhs. There were two shops near where now the Rangers have their first checkpost at Wagha; one belonged to Atma Singh and the other to Nawab Din and Chiragh Din. The place also served as a stop for buses that used to transport people from Lahore to Amritsar and back,” adds Rafiq who had been a classmate of Ibrahim.
Haji Abdul Ghani, a 70-year-old resident of Harbanspura, said the village had one Sikh family and five Hindu households back in 1947. “Ram Nath was the lumberdar of our village. Except for an elderly Hindu woman of my village, who was packed in a sack and thrown in the canal, and Balees who was murdered near Mughalpura Lal Pul, all migrated to India safely. Narain Singh preferred to stay here, embraced Islam and became Noor Din shortly after partition.”
The farmers of Thehpura, a village approximately a kilometre from the border south of Wagha, cultivate their fields almost up to the electrified and well-lit fence with concertina wires. A farmer of the village took this reporter to a point just 20 metres from the fence across which a turbaned middle-aged man was having his lunch. “Ha kon wa?” (Who is he?) was the query from across the fence. “Prona wa Lahor toon,” (A guest from Lahore) was the reply from the Pakistani side.