In the recent news, a YouTube channel ‘Punjab Lehar’ has helped to connect several Indians and Pakistanis who got separated in the 1947 partition. The YouTube channel has gained hundreds of thousands of followers from both countries. The Pakistani Youtuber, Nasir Dhillon started Punjabi Lehar in 2016 with a friend – since then, he says the channel has helped hundreds of people reunite with their loved ones, often virtually, across the border.
The Pakistani Youtuber Was Inspired by His Own Family’s Experience to Reunite Separated Families
The Pakistani Youtuber says he was inspired to start Punjabi Lehar because of his own family’s partition experience, his grandfather and father had moved to Pakistan from Amritsar in India’s Punjab state. “They had a good life in Pakistan, but always yearned to go back to their village in Amritsar,” he says. Punjabi Lehar hit headlines in India in January 2022 when a video of an emotional reunion between two brothers after 74 years went viral.
One of the brothers, Sikka Khan, had remained in India with their mother while the other brother, Sadiq Khan, ended up in Pakistan with their father after the partition. They found each other after a man from Sikka Khan’s village spotted an appeal made by Sadiq through a video posted on Punjabi Lehar. “There is no bigger virtue than reuniting loved ones,” Pakistani Youtuber, Nasir Dhillon says.
Punjab Lehar Now Has More Than 600,000 Subscribers
Before launching the channel ‘Punjab Lehar’, Nasir Dhillon would often visit Nankana Sahib – the birthplace of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism. There he met Bhupinder Singh Lovely, a Pakistani Sikh, who later co-founded Punjabi Lehar with him. The channel now has more than 600,000 subscribers. The Pakistani Youtuber says they are flooded with requests from people in India and Pakistan to find lost family members.
“People also approach us to find their ancestral houses or gurdwaras,” he says. Punjabi Lehar doesn’t have a team but Nasir Dhillon and Lovely have now built up a network of contacts and activists in both countries, which helps them track people.
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