The Mirpuri diaspora consists of Pahari people originating from the Mirpur District of Azad Kashmir, Pakistan, 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 princely state of Jammu and Kashmir to escape Muslim violence. The construction of the Mangla Dam by the Pakistani Government in the 1960s flooded fertile agricultural lands, forcing many Mirpuri Muslims to migrate to the United Kingdom to survive on work as labourers.
