Asif Saleem Qureshi

At the time of Partition, Asif Saleem Qureshi was a student of grade two. She went to school on a cart amidst the riots in Lahore. “There was a lot of violence, looting, and rioting at the Bank Square and a lot of tear gas and firing as well. I remember the tongawala would change routes every day,” she says. She says that nearly 300 people took refuge in their house in Lahore. “They slept there for days and there were two doctors looking after them.
Mrs. Qureshi remembers that women became very politically active in Lahore in the weeks after Partition. “One of the most significant protests was by the women who led procession marches against the burqa and the veil under the leadership of Begum Shah Nawaz. It was a compulsion on the Muslim women to wear the burqa but after a series of processions and protests, gradually, the women in the streets could be seen without a burqa,” she says.