We were in our house in Winter Place. When my uncle came in his car, Morris Traveler, it was called, I think, and he rushed in and he was carrying a revolver.

BBC World Service we're taking you back to the early summer of 1947

when 11 year old Harun Ahmed's life was about to change forever.

And he says to my mother, jump into the car, take the children, jump into the car,

immediately come come

British India was weeks away from getting its independence but there were

disturbances in Delhi disturbances that would soon be followed by partition the violent division of the

subcontinent into two new dominions. Harun and his family were Muslims and

already vulnerable to the mounting communal unrest.

To mark the 70th anniversary of the division, he and many other witnesses to the bloodshed

are speaking to the BBC for this special series partition voices.

What I remember most of all I remember the smell of excreta.

Everybody's wetting themselves or doing things and there are not enough facilities.

And then they're crying. The women were crying because they lost things or relatives.

It was a new world order.

Seventy years ago they were to get their freedom from British rule, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs.

But there was a cost.

The Indian subcontinent was partitioned into Hindu majority India and Muslim majority Pakistan, sparking one of the largest

force migrations the world has ever seen.

Muslims to Pakistan, Hindus and Sikhs to India.

Over 10 million people were on the move.

Sectarian violence followed,

...