Boota Singh

Boota Singh sometimes spelled as Buta Singh, was a Sikh ex-soldier of the British Army who served at the Burma front under the command of Lord Mountbatten during World War II. He is very well known in India and Pakistan for his tragic love story with Zainab, a Muslim girl he rescued during the communal riots in the time of partition of India in 1947. Both fell in love and got married. Later, being a Muslim, Zainab is deported and sent to the newly born Pakistan. Boota illegally enters Pakistan and when the girl backed off under the pressure from her family, he commits suicide by jumping before an upcoming train near Shahdara station in Pakistan along with his daughter but she survived but some people tell another story about this incident. According to them, they did not go to Pakistan, they went towards Bengal and both were killed due to illness. The love story of Singh's life is widely adapted in films and books on both sides of the border. A Punjabi film Shaheed-e-Mohabbat Boota Singh (1999) is entirely based on the story. Ishrat Rahmani wrote a novel, Muhabbat, based on the story. The story also influenced many other films including a 2007 Canadian film Partition and a 2001 Bollywood film Gadar and the 2004 Bollywood film Veer Zaara.

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