In Pics: 14 August 1947, 75 years of India- Pakistan's Partition
Indian independence came with a hefty price: a bloody partition in which a million people were killed, and many were displaced from their homes.
This August 14 not only marks 75 years since the partition of a great country India into 3 parts, but now is also observed as Partition Horrors Remembrance Day.
Up to two million people lost their lives in the most horrific of manners. The darkened landscape bore silent witness to trains laden with the dead, decapitated bodies, limbs strewn along the sides of roads, and wanton rape and pillaging. There was nothing that could have prepared the approximately 14 million refugees for this nightmare.
The 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent into the independent nations of Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan was accompanied by one of the largest mass migrations in human history and violence on a scale that had seldom been seen before.
Believing they would return "home," many families left their valuables behind before they packed up their essential belongings and began the trek to India or West or East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Many never made it.