The film is set in 1947. The exodus has begun after Partition. A Sikh ex-military man in his thirties finds a 16-year-old Muslim girl alone in a nearby village and brings her home. But the villagers tell him he should either marry her or leave her in a camp where people bound for Pakistan are located. But he decides that since he's far older, he'd better leave her at the camp. As he is about to send her off with a man bound for the camp and who is prepared to marry her there, she asks Buta Singh if he is so poor that he cannot even feed her two Rotis per day to keep her alive. Whereupon Buta Singh decides to marry her. They have a baby girl. And Buta is pretty happy that despite being overage, matrimonially speaking, he's leading a pleasant life. Others of his class usually had to actually buy women from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar whom they married. A jealous uncle who realizes the family property will now go to the Muslim girl, forcibly dumps Buta's wife into a truck bound for Pakistan. Buta realizes what has happened, sells all his land and goes along with his child to Pakistan illegally. He's quickly arrested and brought before a judge who's quite willing to free him if his wife owns up. But, under pressure from her family, the girl backs off. A disillusioned and distraught Buta jumps with his daughter before an oncoming train. He dies, but his daughter is saved. Pakistani youth, overcome by this, hail him thus: Shaheed-e-Mohabat (a martyr in the cause of love), erect a memorial and a trust in his name.