Millions will celebrate Indian independence today, but I’ll think of my father – and an atrocity | Roshan Doug

Terrible things happened in the runup to the historic day and my father witnessed one of them. The two events are inseparable to me

For many Indians, 15 August is a day of celebration but for some, it's a reminder of the atrocities that were committed during the lead-up to the stroke of midnight". I'm one of them. My father was not even 12 when he saw a brutal murder in his village in the north-east district of Jalandhar.

It was late 1946, only a few months before India was to gain independence. People - Hindus and Muslims - had got wind of Lord Mountbatten's plans to partition the country. The two-nation theory that had been a rallying call for Indian Muslims such as Muhammad Ali Jinnah was now becoming an inevitable reality.

Roshan Doug is an academic and the former poet laureate of Birmingham