Mirpuri diaspora


The Mirpuri diaspora refers to individuals with an origin in Mirpur now living outside that district. Migration from Mirpur started occurring in the 1920s, when many Mirpuris left for Bombay to work on merchant ships. During the partition of British India in 1947, many Mirpuri Hindus and Mirpuri Sikhs were forced to flee to cities in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The construction of the Mangla Dam by the Pakistani Government in the 1960s caused many of Mirpuri Muslims to migrate to the United Kingdom to work as labourers.

India

In the 1920s, some Mirpuris left the area for Bombay, in order to work jobs on the merchant ships of British India.
Just before the partition of India, there were over 114,000 Mirpuri Hindus and Mirpuri Sikhs living in the Mirpur District of British India. Many of them were engaged in business. After the partition of India, in what is known as the 1947 Mirpur massacre females belonging to the Hindu and Sikh communities of Mirpur were abducted and raped by Pakistani tribals, with many Hindu Mirpuris and Sikh Mirpuris being forced to flee to Jammu and other parts of India. In total, fifty thousand Hindu Mirpuris and Sikh Mirpuris were massacred by Pakistani tribals as they were fleeing, while the remaining number found refuge in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, where they settled in the cities of Jammu, Kathua, Rajouri, Poonch and Udhampur. By 1951, only 790 Hindu and Sikh Mirpuris remained left in their hometown.

Pakistan

In colonial India in the 1880s, some Mirpuris migrated to the city of Karachi to work on merchant ships.
Within Pakistan, Azad Kashmiris have migrated towards many provinces outside of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, chiefly Punjab, Sindh and the capital territory of Islamabad.

United Kingdom

Mirpuris form 70% of the British Pakistani population. Many of these individuals migrated to the United Kingdom after in the 1960s to work as labourers after the construction of the Mangla Dam by the Pakistani Government flooded agricultural fields. The majority of them adhere to the Barelvi school of Sunni Islam. In the United Kingdom, the Mirpuri diaspora is present in the cities of Birmingham and Bradford.