Preetam Khan want To take Last Breaths With Separated Family #pritamkhanpakvisa

Preetam Khan, 80, lives at Powt village in Samrala tehsil of Punjab’s Ludhiana district. When he was around six years old, he got separated from his family as the county was partitioned into India and Pakistan at the time of independence in 1947. His father and brothers went to Pakistan while his mother died as she tried to escape from a mob attack. All these years, Preetam Khan has been waiting for any information on his relatives and that long wait finally bore fruit recently after Dhillon uploaded a video about a man from Pakistan searching for his relatives in India. “A few months ago, the nephew of Preetam Khan met me and said that he was in search of his grandmother and uncle who were separated from the other family members during the partition. I uploaded a short video on social media. Afterwards, villagers from Poot in Ludhiana contacted me and told me about Preetam Khan. He has no phone and the villagers helped him,” says Dhillon. Though Preetam Khan may get to meet his nephew and other relatives, he would not be able to see his father and brothers, who have all died. After the partition, they were settled at Chak 95 in Faisalabad. According to Preetam Khan, his father Popo Khan and three brothers hid in the fields and managed to escape when riots broke out in 1947. Preetam Khan remembers a violent mob following him and his mother Rehmat Bibi as they ran for their lives. His mother, he says, hid in a well and though she tried to come out four times, she had to retreat each time because the mob was searching for them outside. Finally, she died of hunger inside the well while he hid in a nearby field for many days to save himself, he says. As the situation normalised, Preetam Khan says, he went back to his village and narrated the story to Sikh families who took care of him. His father and three brothers had already crossed the border into the newly-formed country of Pakistan. “Preetam Khan is in the last phase of his life and requests both India and Pakistan governments that he wants to have his final breath in Pakistan with his relatives. We humbly request the Pakistan High Commission in India to issue a visa to Preetam Khan to join his family members in Pakistan,” Dhillon wrote in his letter to Pakistan High Commission in India. #pritamkhanpakvisa#PunjabiLehar#nasirdhillon