Muslim family yearns to reunite after 70 years amid tense India, Pak ties

As India and Pakistan prepare to celebrate 70 years of independence from Britain next week, thousands of families in the nuclear-armed neighbours remain divided by a border that strained diplomatic ties make harder to cross.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since 1947, and relations remain tense, particularly when it comes to the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, which both claim in full.

"The people who have migrated are not able to come to India, nor can we go there freely," said Asif Fehmi, a resident of a New Delhi neighbourhood where thousands of Muslim families divided by Partition have blood ties over the border.

"We can't meet them freely, and there was a time when we couldn't talk to them freely."

Fehmi's family was among the millions of people whose lives were disrupted in 1947, after departing British colonial administrators ordered the creation of two countries - one mostly Muslim and one majority Hindu.
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