LR Chawla was 25 years old when he found himself living as a Hindu the wrong side of the arbitrary line drawn by Sir Cyril Radcliffe to demarcate the new Muslim state of Pakistan.

Born in the winter retreat of Sibi to a family of civil servants, the city of Quetta had been his home until things abruptly changed for millions of people in 1947 after Partition.

He was actually in Delhi for the Independence Day ceremony led by Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India, on August 15 because he had agreed the previous month to take a consignment of jewellery for a friend.

But the celebrations for India’s freedom from colonial rule were short-lived as communal tensions boiled over to turn the new border region into a killing field and Mr Chawla’s thoughts turned to his mother, three sisters and three brothers back in Quetta.

“People had to leave because they began to feel unsafe,” he recalled yesterday from his office in Bombay where he is chairman of a construction firm.

“In Quetta, there were hardly any communal feelings and there was absolute understanding between the communities. A Pashtoon contractor called Jumma Khan took my mother to his village because things were getting a little out of hand.”

Mr Chawla was able to commandeer three airplanes to go to Quetta on separate occasions to evacuate family and friends. “A friend of mine had a bit of influence,” he said.

During his raids, he got a flavour of the atrocities that were being committed in the name of freedom on both sides but it was in Delhi that he witnessed the horrors of Partition.

“I saw Hindus killing Muslims and Sikhs killing Muslims,” he said. “It’s madness when people go astray. It was brutal savagery.”

With 2,500 rupees to his name, he moved his family into two spare rooms in a friend’s flat in Delhi and started again in construction, the business he had left behind. In 1959, he moved to Bombay where he lives today with his wife and two sons and oversees Chawla Interbild Construction, a successful mid-sized company.

The memorabilia in his office suggests he is drawn to strong leaders - photos of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first post-Independence prime minister, a bust of Winston Churchill, Britain’s war-time prime minister, and newspaper articles about Margaret Thatcher – but he is no fan of “the Britishers” role in dividing his country.

“Partition was a disaster and the British were responsible for that,” he said. “In 1947 no Britishers were killed. It was Hindus and Muslims. Tears come to my eyes when I think of the division. I like the Britishers but politically, they have ruined the world. They plundered India.”

Mr Chawla, now 85, has never been back to Quetta but plans a trip this winter “just to see”. He said: “I have got warm feelings about the Muslims in Pakistan. They were my college friends. But if I go, I will only know it geographically. No friends are there now.”

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