Agya Kaur to Rabiya Bibi, reunion after Partition

It took a lot of luck, and the thaw in Indo-Pak relations helped. While the journey back home on the Samjhauta Express was a fairy-tale ending to the story of Rabiya, a resident of Potha district near Mirpur in POK, it was possible only due to frantic efforts on the part of the siblings on both sides of the border.

Alighting from the train, Rabiya and her brothers Joginder Singh and Kesar Singh embraced one another. Recalling the tortuous years spent in uncertainty, Rabiya said: ‘‘I spent many a sleepless night, praying for the well-being of my brothers.’’ Her parents, she added, were Sikhs based at Kalri village in Mirpur. ‘‘We were crossing over from Mirpur towards Indian side of Kashmir during Partition when firing on both sides claimed my parents’ lives. There was a stampede, due to which I was separated from my brothers and forced to stay behind,’’ she said. Her appeals to Pakistani military then, to locate her brothers fell on deaf ears. Efforts by her brothers in India to trace her also yielded no result.

But Agya was adopted by a Samaritan, who even got her married to a rich POK-based landlord, Hakim Ali. She became Rabiya and settled down, but refused to give up her quest for her brothers. The hostilities between India and Pakistan were her biggest hurdle. ‘‘We had friends visiting India every now and then. But as the two countries were not favourably disposed to each other, it was not possible to make enquiries about my family,’’ she said.

However, the unflinching support of her family, particularly her husband Hakim Ali, kept her going. ‘‘When my husband first came to know of my family and the tragedy that we faced, he wept with me. It was he who constantly encouraged and helped me to trace my brothers,’’ she said.

The siblings’ efforts were rewarded when a Pakistani informed Kesar Singh during his Pathankot visit in 2005 that he had seen the name Agya Kaur tattooed on the hand of a woman in Potha. Kesar and his family pleaded with the man to contact his sister. ‘‘We gave him our sister’s name and details about how we were separated and he helped us by tracing her,’’ said Kesar.