Estranged in 1947, Saka may soon meet his family in Pakistan

A whiff of ambrosial sweets, flower garlands, and a sense of brimming anticipation is what fills the air at the humble abode of Muhammad Siddique in the Faisalabad district of northern Punjab. From a mile away, one can tell that this house has a lot to make merry. The reason for this revelling is the long-overdue visit from Siddique’s younger brother Habib Khan, who had been separated from his family during the 1947 cleaving of the Indian subcontinent.

A few weeks ago, a video of the estranged siblings meeting for the first time in 75 years at the visa-free Kartarpur Corridor, went viral on the internet. Their affectionate but fleeting embrace welled up many eyes near and far, including those at the Pakistan High Commission, that recently issued a formal visa for Khan to come and meet his family. “We are now waiting for the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs to furnish an NOC for Habib to cross the Attari-Wagah border,” said Muhammad Siddique, his voice filled both joy and uncertainty.

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Habib, who has come to be affectionately known as Saka Khan in his village of Pahlewal in Indian Punjab, was parted from his father, brother, and other immediate relatives when he was just two years old. While Muhammad was taken to the newly created Pakistan, he was left in the homeland at the behest of his mother, who could never have fathomed how enduring their separation would come to be.

Although Saka had wrinkled dreaming about meeting the rest of his family one day, the escalating relationship between the two bordering nations made it very difficult for him to do much about it. Unbeknownst to him, however, a similar desire had been burning within his brother, who was eventually seen narrating the ordeal of their family’s cleaving in a YouTube video uploaded by local YouTuber Nasir Dhillon in 2019.

“We saw the video and immediately identified Siddique,” said Jasgir Singh, a medical practitioner from Habib’s village, who eventually wrote to Dhillon in a bid to arrange a meeting between the estranged siblings.

According to Singh, Saka’s yearning for his family had clouded his life so much that he thought that he could not afford any other distraction, including getting married.

Policy for the estranged elderly

Despite the historic feuding of India and Pakistan, an agreement drafted between the two neighbouring countries in 2012 had allowed senior citizens above the age of 65 to secure travel visas to cross the border via the Attari-Wagah pipeline. Following which, several individuals like Chanchal Manohar Singh, who had been separated from their families during the partition, were able to unite with kinsfolk in Pakistan. Interestingly, to date, no senior citizen from Pakistan has been allowed entry into India under this agreement.

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The year 2019 however, was when Pakistan granted entry to the last Indian senior citizen under the 2012 policy, after which both countries have remained at loggerheads, restricting travel beyond their borders.

Speaking in this regard, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Asim Iftikhar maintains that the Islamic Republic has not scrapped the 2012 Independent Bilateral Visa Agreement sketched between the two countries. “We have been allowing eligible senior citizens to travel on a case-by-case basis, but the programme had to be suspended during the wake of Covid-19. We are yet to resume,” asserted the foreign office personnel.

Owing to the suspension of the programme and growing tension, hundreds of people on either side of the border have remained unable to meet with their closest of kin. However, Pakistan’s former ambassador to India Abdul Basit, the Indo-Pak animosity has grown too deep for any individual action to succeed. Addressing the situation, Ravi Nitish, who runs Aghaz Dosti, a non-governmental organization working for peace and friendship between India and Pakistan, said estranged families should be granted visas on humanitarian grounds.

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