Brothers Separated, Orphaned Find Each Other After 74 Years

Sikka Khan's family was torn apart during India's partition
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 25, 2022 3:01 AM CST

Sikka Khan's family was torn apart during India's partition in 1947—but after 74 years, he was finally reunited with his brother. When the British departed India in 1947 and drew a new border to divide its former colony, many Muslims fled to Pakistan while many Hindus and Sikhs came into India, the Washington Post explains. As many as two million people died as some people turned against one another violently. Khan's family was Muslim, and he was just 6 months old at the time. His 10-year-old brother nearly lost his life escaping to Pakistan, his father did lose his life trying to do the same, and his mother took her own life, leaving Khan alone.

A local family of Sikhs took him in and raised him, and he spent years asking Muslims on their way to Pakistan to look for his brother, taking out newspaper ads, scouring the internet, and even posting on social media.Recently, however, younger generations have renewed attempts to reunify families separated during the partition; on one YouTube channel dedicated to doing so, Khan's brother told his family's story. A relative of the family that took Khan in as a baby saw the video and thought the story sounded familiar. It wasn't long before the relationship was confirmed, and the newly reunited siblings were chatting on WhatsApp—sometimes more than once a day.

The COVID-19 pandemic delayed their plans to meet in person, but this month, they finally found a way to meet in a visa-free passage that allows Indians to visit a Sikh holy site inside Pakistan. Video of the two men rushing into each other's arms to embrace, and cry, went viral locally. They're now trying to get visas so they can see each other more often—or maybe even move to live closer to each other. "This is how I want to spend the rest of my life," Sikka says, per the Indian Express. (More uplifting news stories.)

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