When India gained Independence, the departing British rulers drew a line through Punjab province, creating Pakistan.
An estimated 14 million Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus were displaced and around one million were killed.
The partition divided many formerly harmonious communities.
Balwant Chadha grew up in Jelham, Punjab province, in what became Pakistan.
Coming from a Sikh family, he remembers playing by the Jelham river with Muslim and Hindu friends as a child.
But he says in 1947, when he was six years old, that all changed.
Balwant Chadha remembers terrified neighbours seeking shelter at his family home.
Later his family too decided to flee the newly-formed Pakistan, taking a heavily overcrowded train toward India.
As Sikhs and Hindus left Pakistan, Muslim refugees were coming the other way.
Now 87 and living in Melbourne's east, Dr Abdul Khaliq Kazi remembers meeting many of them at the train station in Karachi, offering them food and welcome.
He believes the religious divisions were encouraged by the British in order to rule more easily.
He says, while many in Pakistan were euphoric at becoming independent, others were suffering.
Remembering the time, seniors of both the community wish if they could visit the places which they had to leave in 1947.
Sydney based Mr. G.S. Sidhu says, it hurts thinking about the time and recites a poetry that 'both the communities did their deeds but no one is happy about it.'
And sydney based poet Mr. Rahat , blaming this partition, a political move recites a poetry in saying, 'O politicians, you did your bit, but tell me where have our friend gone."
