It was a chance meeting with a Muslim resident at a busy ‘Sardaranwala Bagh’ chowk at Rawalpindi who told Mr Bhupinder Singh that he had been waiting for a Sikh to take away the original rent deed which he had been preserving since Partition.

"This is my way of paying the debt to the Sikh landlord."

Muslim tenant Mohammad Hassan of Rawalpindi said he was ‘under debt’ that he could not pay the rent money as mentioned in the deed signed in 1947.

‘‘Sardarji never came back after signing the deed and I didn’t know what to do about the rent I owed to him." He said the entire area, which to date is called ‘Sardaranwala Bagh’ (now converted into a big shopping complex) belonged to the two brothers — Mohan Singh and Sohan Singh.

As per the rent deed, written in Persian script, the shop was rented out for Rs 7 per month to Mr Hassan. An amount of Rs 35 was taken as advance. The rent deed also bore signatures of two witnesses.

Mohammad Hassan told Mr Bhupinder Singh that the two areas, 'Sardaranwala Bagh and Krishan Pura’ were both dominated by Sikhs and Hindus. However, Partition forced them to leave Rawalpindi.

‘‘I have learnt that the Sikhs and Hindus who had migrated to England or India were now millionaires’, but the permanent settlers (the Muslims) had not made much progress.

Mr Bhupinder Singh also visited Murri, the hill station in Pakistan. He said after Partition all the Sikh and Hindu families migrated to India but one Sikh family, which did not leave, converted to Islam. He said unlike India, the colonial buildings and scenic beauty of the hills and other parts of Pakistan had been preserved after spending huge funds.

Mr Bhupinder Singh gave an another interesting account of his visit to the office of the Deputy Commissioner, Shekhupura, near Nankana Sahib. He said unlike India where bureaucrats were not easily accessible to the common man, the Shekhupura Deputy Commissioner was holding an open darbar outside his office. Under a huge portrait of Mohammad Ali Jinah, the founder of Pakistan, a caption was written:

"Nobody in the holy land of Guru Nanak tells a lie, they always speak truth’’.

He was also impressed with the preservation of the Sikh art and heritage in the Quila from where Maharaja Ranjit Singh ruled the whole of the Panjab.

He, however, said that the ‘Maryada’ in most gurdwaras in Pakistan was not being maintained properly.