Remembering the Punjab Boundary Force and the Shadow of Partition

When India and Pakistan became two separate countries in 1947, the land called Punjab was cut in half by a line drawn on a map.

This made many people very scared and angry, and terrible fighting broke out between neighbours.

To try to stop the fighting, leaders created a special group of soldiers called the Punjab Boundary Force.

It was made up of soldiers from both new countries and was led by Major General T W Rees.

The force had to guard a huge area, bigger than Scotland and Wales put together, with nearly 17,000 villages.

But the fighting was too big and too fast for the soldiers to stop.

Some soldiers even fought on the side of their own communities instead of keeping the peace, which made things worse.

After only a few weeks, leaders decided the force had failed, and it was shut down at the end of August 1947.

Then India and Pakistan each took charge of their own side of the boundary with their own soldiers.

The Punjab Boundary Force is remembered as a sad lesson from a very painful time in history.