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Dangerous Borders: A Journey across India and Pakistan

Series 1

Episode 2

Duration: 59 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Two ScotlandLatest broadcast: on BBC Four HD

Journalists Adnan Sarwar and Babita Sharma are on the second part of their epic journey taking them both through the province of Punjab, along the volatile border that divides India and Pakistan. This lush, densely populated region was split in two at Partition and nowhere is the division more keenly felt.

Adnan begins at the Quaid-E-Azam Solar Park, a hugely impressive solar farm covering 6,500 acres and part of a massive £35 billion investment programme in Pakistan by the Chinese. Whilst this is going to go some way to solving the country's power shortage, it risks upsetting Pakistan's neighbours, who have a fractious relationship with China. Babita first visits the city of Chandigarh, which became the new capital of Indian Punjab at Partition. Designed by the pre-eminent modernist architect Le Corbusier, this was the vision of what the Indian government wanted the new state to become - modern and progressive - but the ambitions don't seem to have stood the test of time. A local resident, graffiti artist Sarwan, shares his bleak view of the continuing animosity between India and Pakistan.

A hundred and fifty miles away across the border in Lahore, Adnan meets a couple who, in 1947, spent over two months walking from India to the safety of Muslim-dominated Pakistan. Adnan hears of the unimaginable acts of brutality that they witnessed on the journey - it is the first time he has ever heard this first-hand and it has a hugely powerful emotional impact. He goes on to meet local rock star Salman Ahmad, whose songs have become political anthems, criticizing the endemic political corruption. Show less

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