Anwar Shaikh was born in 1928 in Gujrat, now in Pakistan, in a Muslim family that vaguely remembered its pre-conversion Hindu origin as Kashmiri Pand… - Anwar Shaikh

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Anwar Shaikh was born in 1928 in Gujrat, now in Pakistan, in a Muslim family that vaguely remembered its pre-conversion Hindu origin as Kashmiri Pandits. In an age of mounting religious tensions, however, he grew up to be a committed Muslim. Come 1947 and the Partition of India, he was living in Lahore, a Hindu/Sikh-majority city expected to remain with India yet allotted to Pakistan because it was the metropolis of Muslim-majority West Panjab. Consequently, the city became the flashpoint of the worst interreligious violence, ending in its complete cleansing of non-Muslims. The young Anwar Shaikh took part in the Partition violence against Sikhs and Hindus, killing three Sikhs with his own hands.