ISLAMABAD: A 105-year-old Pakistani woman was reunited this month with her Indian niece at the Kaaba in a meeting the centenarian described as a “dream come true,” saying it was a “double blessing” that the late-life encounter took place during the Umrah pilgrimage in Makkah.
Hajjirah Bibi, like thousands of other families, was separated from her sister during the partition of 1947 and remained divided over three-quarters of a century after their countries were formed in the rupture of independence from British-ruled India. The partition triggered mass migration in both directions, marred by bloodshed and violence. About 15 million people changed countries, mainly based on religion, and more than a million were killed in religious riots, according to independent estimates.
Bibi’s journey to reconnect with her lost sister began when a letter reached her in the 1980s, over two decades after it had first arrived in Pakistan. Before this point, she had believed her sister had died during partition.
When she told her neighbor, local Kabaddi player Amina Ashiq, about the letter last year, she connected Bibi to Pakistani YouTuber Nasir Dhillon, who used his channel, Punjabi Lehar TV, to locate her family in India and established phone contact. It was then that Bibi found out her sister had now passed away but she had a niece, identified only by her first name Hanifan, who still lived in India.
After both failed multiple times to get visas, Dhillon organized an Umrah visit for them and they met at the Kaaba on Nov. 15. The YouTuber’s Sikh friend from Canada, Sardar Paul Singh Gill, contributed to financing the travel of the three to Makkah.
“It is indeed a dream come true and I am truly grateful to Allah for the opportunity to meet my niece for the first time in life at the Holy Kaaba, which is a double blessing at this stage of my life,” Bibi told Arab News over the phone from Madinah.
“While I had initially assumed she [sister] might have passed away during the partition, in the 1980s, I received a letter that had been dispatched over two decades earlier to an address where I no longer lived.”
However, the family that lived at that address managed to get the letter delivered to Bibi two decades later.
“I could not locate her [sister] at that time but had this last wish to see my lost family once before death,” Bibi said. “I am thankful to all those who tried to help me in this reunion.”
Last year, Bibi told her neighbor Ashiq about the letter from India, sparking her interest in facilitating a reunion.
Ashiq, who served as the old lady’s caretaker during Umrah, described it as a “proud moment” in her life.
“With Dhillon’s assistance, we brought them to Makkah for Umrah, leading to their first-ever meeting, and witnessing their reunion brought tears to my eyes,” she added.
The YouTuber said he had used his channel to help more than 300 such reunions take place in the last ten years.
“The sole purpose of creating this channel was to facilitate reunions of those who were separated during partition,” Dhillon told Arab News.
In Bibi’s case, he said, Ashiq contacted him, and he subsequently uploaded the story to his YouTube channel in December 2022.
“Initially we tried to arrange their meeting at Kartarpur but the Indian side did not allow Hanifan [to travel],” he said, “so, then we decided to arrange their meet up in Makkah.”
