BBC World Service. 70 years ago, Britain gave up its imperial rule over India.

But the partition of the Indian subcontinent into Hindu majority India and Muslim majority Pakistan unleashed savage violence among the very people

it was supposed to set free. I'm Kavita Puri and this is Partition Voices. Our special series hearing from witnesses to the Indian

partition on its 70th anniversary. Many are speaking for the first time. Today they tell of the weeks immediately after British India

gained its independence when its division into two countries began one of the

largest refugee movements the world has ever seen.

Of course I do remember the 13th of September

1947, my exact sixth birthday

when we were forced to leave Pakistan to come to India.

Mejadal, a Hindu, cannot forget the day he left his birthplace in Lyle-Pore,

British India, which became Faisalabad in Pakistan.

That particular night there was a very major attack on the biggest village close to us

and everybody in the village,

felt that there's no point in continuing anymore, let's go.

You know, just leave Pakistan.

My father never wanted to leave Pakistan. My father never wanted to leave Pakistan.

Because my father loved the place so much.

Millions now found themselves on the wrong side of the new border dividing the populous provinces of Punjab and Bengal.

It was a time so traumatic that seven decades on, those who lived through it are only just beginning to tell their story.

The pain of leaving soil that generations had lived on and long-cherished neighbors

is still remembered today.

The contact with the Yasmin that haunts me.

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