<P> Lawrence James observed that "' Sir Francis Mudie, the governor of West Punjab, estimated that 500,000 Muslims died trying to enter his province, while the British high commissioner in Karachi put the full total at 800,000...This makes nonsense of the claim by Mountbatten and his partisans that only 200,000 were killed' (James 1998: 636)". </P> <P> According to political scientist Ishtiaq Ahmed, "in March 1947 the Muslims started large - scale violence, mainly against Sikhs but also against Hindus, in the Muslim - majority districts of northern Punjab . Yet at the end of that year more Muslims had been killed in East Punjab than Hindus and Sikhs together in West Punjab ." Nehru wrote to Gandhi on 22 August that up to then, twice as many Muslims had been killed in East Punjab than Hindus and Sikhs in West Punjab . </P> <P> The province of Bengal was divided into the two separate entities of West Bengal, awarded to the Dominion of India, and East Bengal, awarded to the Dominion of Pakistan . East Bengal was renamed East Pakistan in 1955, and later became the independent nation of Bangladesh after the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 . </P> <P> While the Muslim majority districts of Murshidabad and Malda were given to India, the Hindu majority district of Khulna and the Buddhist majority, but sparsely populated, Chittagong Hill Tracts were given to Pakistan by the Radcliffe award . </P>

Which neighbouring country of india came into existence in 1971