Voices: Kazi Shamsuzzaman

Migrated from West to East Bengal

"During ‘Direct Action Day’, when the riots broke out, we were given an option to choose between Pakistan and India. Just because we are Muslims, we would be going to Pakistan. A person from Faridpur (East Pakistan), a neighbour of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who was my father’s friend and who was a postal officer at Howrah (India), insisted that we migrate... My father gave me a bag of valuables and asked me to hide on a tree next to a graveyard. My father hid in a broken grave... We came out when the riots were over... We started by Surma Mail from Calcutta, Sealdah Station [with] a bag with my mother’s jewellery, post office pass books and some documents that my father thought were important... Partition was not a good thing. If we were together, the country could have been more prosperous."