My family occupied the house of a Muslim family’ – Surinder Shani, 81, retired architect, UK

In Rawalpindi, my family ran a grain store in the centre of the city which was predominantly Muslim. We are Sikh but my father was friends with the Muslims. They used to talk about poetry together.We moved to Jalandhar in India because of partition. There was riots forcing the Muslims to go to Pakistan. My uncle said we should go and occupy the Muslims’ houses as people were leaving. My father was reluctant but

he was forced to do it by his brother.As the Muslim family were leaving the house I remember because I was there, about 12 at the time my father apologised to the owner, an elderly gentleman, saying how sorry he was that this was happening.

My father promised to look after the house. And the man said, please just look after my books they are more

important to me than the house. Then a day later we heard that they were all killed by a Sikh mob on the way to

Pakistan. They didn’t reach the border.