It was the middle of August 1947, just after the partition of India by the British. Hindus and other minorities were to live in India and the Muslim majority in Pakistan. There was a mass migration of people who had been settled in their homelands for generations to the newly divided India and Pakistan. The atrocities they endured on their way to their new homelands were indescribable. Most of Punjab was cohabited by the Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims. Near Sunam, Seron was another village heavily populated by Muslim families. People were so paranoid about each other that neighbours fell to killing people their families had known for generations. On one such day, the Chaudhry of Seron village, about two or three kilometres from Sunam, attacked Sunam to kill its residents.

It fell to Captain Ram Singh to protect his family and the surrounding households. The police were nowhere to be seen. So everyone had to protect their own kith and kin. Captain sahib organised all the young people of the locality, and whoever could come with whatever ammunition was recruited to save Sunam from the attack. My father, Avtar Singh, who was very young at the time, told me that he was sent with the family’s 12-bore gun to fire it at other people in anger, to protect themselves. Sangat Singh, a distant uncle of my father, had learned how to make desi bombs. He came along to give extra help and protect Sunam from the attack.