The family of Amrit Pal Singh's parents was forced to flee their home in Hazara district of North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan) at the time of Partition.
PS: If you'd like to hear a first-hand account of what happened at Thoha Khalsa in Rawalpindi district in March 1947, here's a survivor Pritpal Singh telling his heart-wrenching story in Punjabi to Keshu Multani who specializes in interviewing Partition survivors and has his own YouTube channel to publish his work.
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(So did the families of both my parents. My father was born in 1939 in Haripur in Hazara district. My mother was born sometime around 1944 in a village in the same district. Hence my affinity for Amrit Pal Singh's work in documenting the violence against Hindus and Sikhs at the time of Partition. His YouTube videos account for the first time I have heard someone giving a well-researched and chronological account of Partition violence in Hazara as well as other districts of that region. That is, 'first time' after having grown up listening to the reminiscences of my father who was an eight-year old boy in August 1947.)
According to Amrit Pal Singh, the violence against Hindus and Sikhs in the region that came to be West Pakistan had first started in Hazara district - as early as in December 1946 - before spreading to Rawalpindi and other districts.
I believe Gurbachan Singh Talib (1911-86), who wrote a book titled 'Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947' commissioned by Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee, and Pakistani-Swedish academic Ishtiaq Ahmed, who's written 'The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed', have given the same chronology in their works.
In his YouTube channel, Amrit Pal Singh describes himself as a "Sikh urban hermit, an independent researcher, a seeker of truth, and a follower of Advaita philosophy".
Almost all his videos are in Hindi or Punjabi.
Amrit Pal Singh has posted his talk in Hindi on violence in Hazara district in five parts.
Here's the first of those five video clips. The series is titled 'Hazara me Hindu-Sikhon ka Qatl-e-Aam' ('The Massacre of Hindus-Sikhs in Hazara')
Amrit Pal Singh has similarly published a five-part series on violence against Hindus/Sikhs in Pothohar region (i.e. Rawalpindi, Chakwal and Jhelum districts of Punjab) whose first video can be seen here.
Here's his video on Thoha Khalsa massacre of March 1947 in Rawalpindi district in which 200 Sikh men, women and children were killed, including 93 who jumped into a deep well to escape being raped or abducted by the attackers.
Here's an analysis Amrit Pal Singh has done of massacre in Hazara and Pothohar, in which he also talks about the undeniably common family/community/cultural origins of Hindus and Sikhs.
Here's an analysis Amrit Pal Singh has done of massacre in Hazara and Pothohar, in which he also talks about the undeniably common family/community/cultural origins of Hindus and Sikhs.
Here's the first of the three video clips on massacre in Lahore.
The first of the two video clips on 'Punjab: before the massacre' is here.
There are a lot more videos on Partition and other subjects posted on his YouTube channel.
---------PS: If you'd like to hear a first-hand account of what happened at Thoha Khalsa in Rawalpindi district in March 1947, here's a survivor Pritpal Singh telling his heart-wrenching story in Punjabi to Keshu Multani who specializes in interviewing Partition survivors and has his own YouTube channel to publish his work.
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