During an interview with the OHP Lahore team, Ms Hanifa Rana narrated an account of when the news of the creation of Pakistan had been initially reported.
She was residing in Lahore at the time. The riots and processions had become worse over the past 3-4 years, and after the news spread about the creation of a new state, the violence escalated even more.
She moved out of the city to her village with her maternal aunts and their children, while her parents went to the city to work. She was in the city when the news spread on the radio and she recounts her parents keeping the details of the creation from the children.
Despite them trying to shelter the children, she and her cousins overhear the adults talking. It was the night of the thirteenth of Ramazan and Ms Rana remembers it vividly; she describes the weather and the bright stars that shone at night, which she expresses as the last sign of hope.
About one week later, fear consumed most people due to the violence, and the shortage of food and water also heightened the fear in the atmosphere. She speaks about a day when she went home at 4 in the afternoon and decided to lay down for a while when one of her relatives approached her, concerned as to why she was resting alone at a time when most people had fled the village and migrated elsewhere, leaving it almost vacant.
Published in Daily Times, July 23rd , 2017.
