Panic grips Punjab town where many have family in Pak

Malerkotla, June 19: You could call it a microcosm of Indo-Pak ties, forged through blood. The congested town of Malerkotla, 124 km from ...

Malerkotla, June 19: You could call it a microcosm of Indo-Pak ties, forged through blood. The congested town of Malerkotla, 124 km from Chandigarh in Punjab’s Sangrur district, has the distinction of being the only Muslim-dominated town in the state. Shia and Sunni families comprise 75 per cent of the town’s population.

There’s hardly a house which does not have a close relative in Pakistan. Due to the custom of marriage between cousins, girls from here are married to Pakistanis and vice versa. Travelling to and fro across the border is routine. Two private buses operate from here to Attari twice a week. But, due to the prevailing tension in Kargil, the number of passengers has dropped to less than half. Laments Saudagar Singh, manager of the Libra Transport Company which runs a bi-weekly service, “Earlier, each bus carried at least 15 Muslims going to Pakistan. Since the past 15 days, it has fallen to just four.” For everyone here, a yearly visit to family in Pakistan is mandatory. Many combine it withbusiness, carrying artificial bangles from here and returning with dry fruit. But, in the current climate of uncertainty, tension hangs heavy.

Sixty-year-old Mohammed Sultan, proprietor of a Unani medicine shop in Mohalla Modia, is worried about his two sisters, both married to embroiderers in Sindh. His entire maternal family is settled in Pakistan. They find it expensive to either visit or ring him up. As his brother, who has just returned from an extended stay there, says, people in Pakistan are more worried about the skyrocketing inflation than about Indo-Pakistan tension. Sixtyfive-year-old Bashira, a maid, who married off her daughter to a car dealer in Pakistan just eight months ago, regrets it today. She cries, “If they drop a bomb on Lahore, what will happen to my beloved Firdaus?”Those due to leave this week to attend marriages in Pakistan are gripped by indecision. Kubra, 60, who plans to visit her sister in Faislabad, expresses a universal fear, “I’m scared that those who go might be stuckthere, while those who visit us may not be able to return.”

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That is precisely what happened during Partition, when families got accidentally divided. In fact, all through those turbulent times, Malerkotla remained an oasis of peace due to the efforts of the ruling Nawab. Muslims from all over Punjab converged here for shelter and then stayed on. Despite the high percentage of Muslims, the town has never been gripped by communal tension, due mainly to historical reasons. Sikhs are indebted to the legendary Nawab of Malerkotla, Sher Mohammed Khan, who raised a strong protest when the Muslim Nawab of Sirhind declared his resolve to bury alive in a bricked-in tomb the two young sons of the Tenth Guru, Guru Gobind Singh.Today, though, the town’s Muslims, most of them economically weak, are conscious of their vulnerability in the event of war. Says barber Shaukat Ali, “If war starts, first it will affect Punjab. I am scared, I want to go back to Dubai.”

Communal amity notwithstanding, interaction with lovedones in Pakistan has ensured that loyalties among Muslims here are divided. Most of them inhabiting the narrow lanes of the city are reluctant to take sides. Questioned about the Kargil conflict, many declare, “Both India and Pakistan have gone crazy. They are both to blame.” Thirty-two-year-old Pakistani Bushra Malak, who married a sweetshop owner in the town’s Sirhindi Gate two years ago, is angry over the Indian ban on Pakistan TV. Her younger sister, Nabila, who is visiting her from Lahore, bursts out, “We are only getting one-sided news, how can we know the real truth about what is happening in Kargil?”