Lakeer (First Pahari Film) - Written by Ali Daalat -- Promo

A line drawn on a map cannot divide the hearts of people who live on the land. Yet it rends the very fabric of their life. The time is mid-1940s and the place, Mirpur, a town in the south-west of the princely state of Mirpur. Sakina, the beautiful daughter of a proud landowner, falls in love with Sheeda, who is of a humble peasant stock. Terrified of the consequences, the couple elopes to Rajouri.



A turbulence is raging in the state which will leave it divided into two parts, one to go with Pakistan and the other to form a part of India. Eventually, Mirpur falls in 'Azad' Kashmir and Rajouri on the Indian side.

Sheeda and Sakina now find themselves firmly separated from their familial ties. Though nursing a sense of guilt, Sakina lives happily with her husband and children in her newly found home. But, not for long. Sardara, Sheeda's old sympathizer emerges one day from his past.

Learning from him about her father's death and her mother's solitude, Sakina insists on visiting her father's grave in Mirpur across the Line of Control along with old Saradara.

The husband and wife part in the fond hope that they will re-unite soon enough. Fate, however, has something else in store for them. The acrimony between India and Pakistan culminates into a full-scale war and put pays to the hopes of the fackless lovers. Their children grow old, get married and raise their own children in turn. Sheeda builds himself a fine house in Rajouri.

Surrounded by his progeny and cushioned by his prosperity, the old man pines for his love. Then, one day destiny brings back Sakina -- now in her eighties -- to her husband and family in Rajouri.

The children and grand children are rejoicing the matriarch's return to the fold when comes the message that her permit has expired and cannot be extended.

Sakina has to go back to the other side of Kashmir and no amount of persuasion can budge the authorities to let her stay. Heart broken, the old woman dies on the Line of Control, leaving behind officers of India and Pakistan Army arguing among themselves to which side the permit-expired corpse belongs.