A railway junction in Lahore district

Raiwind is a town in the Lahore area of Punjab, Pakistan. The early twentieth-century Imperial Gazetteer described it as a junction in Lahore district where the railway from Delhi via Bathinda joined the Multan–Lahore line. It recorded a population of 1,764 in 1901 and mentioned cotton-ginning and pressing. These are figures and observations from colonial administration at a specific time, not a present-day population estimate. The gazetteer’s emphasis on transport and agricultural trade gives one view of the settlement; it does not tell the whole story of the people who lived and worked there.[1]

A journey through Partition

In a published recollection of travelling from Okara to Ludhiana during the 1947 Partition, Anand Sarup remembered a train stopping at Raiwind. He described fear among passengers and their reluctance to leave the train for water. Writing more than sixty years later, he also reflected on the difficulty of separating memories of the journey from ideas formed afterwards. His account is evidence of one person’s experience and how he remembered it, rather than a complete record of all journeys through the station. Other testimony and contemporary documents can be read alongside it to understand the wider upheaval.[2]

Religious gathering and movement

A 2024 scholarly study identifies Raiwind, near Lahore, as a headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat in Pakistan. A study of the movement’s gatherings also refers to Raiwind as a centre in Pakistan. These references place the town in a religious network extending beyond its railway history. They do not imply that all residents belong to the movement or take part in its gatherings. The town’s role as a place of work, residence, travel and worship is broader than any single institution. To investigate a particular event or period, the date and perspective of each source matter.[3][4]

Sources & notes

Source records include access dates and, where known, limits on what was examined. Checks used AI assistance; independent human or specialist review has not been completed.

  1. Imperial Gazetteer of India. The Imperial Gazetteer of India, volume 21 ↗Written source · Source date: 1908 · Locator: Raiwind entry, printed p. 63. Accessed 2026-11-03.Indexed gazetteer text inspected for the 1901 railway, population and cotton-processing details; the direct PDF was too large for this recheck.Return to A railway junction in Lahore district, paragraph 1 ↑
  2. Anand Sarup. From Okara to Ludhiana, 1947 ↗Written source · Source date: 2009 · Locator: PDF p. 2, Raiwind stop and “Thoughts atop a goods wagon”. Accessed 2026-11-03.The author’s retrospective account was inspected for the stop and his own uncertainty about memory after sixty-one years.Return to A journey through Partition, paragraph 1 ↑
  3. Kausar Ali, Huang Minxing and Andrew Smith. Muslim Ummah and its Disintegration in the Past: A Critical Analysis of the Tablighi Jamaat Perspective ↗Written source · Source date: 2024-06-14 · Locator: Introduction, printed p. 57; Raiwind discussion, p. 71. Accessed 2026-11-03.The journal article was inspected for its identification of Raiwind as a centre; the previously linked dictionary PDF returned 404.Return to Religious gathering and movement, paragraph 1 ↑
  4. Jahangeer Gulzar. Transnational Islamic Activism: A Study of Tablighi Jama’at of India ↗Written source · Source date: 2020 · Locator: Discussion of Ijtima centres, printed pp. 33–34. Accessed 2026-11-03.Journal article inspected for its discussion of Raiwind and other gathering centres; its claims are attributed to the study.Return to Religious gathering and movement, paragraph 1 ↑
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Record PH-PLA-0089 · English edition · human review not performed