Thousands of Bradfordians will see their ancestral homes destroyed when a controversial dam in Kashmir is raised.

The city's Pakistani families, most of whom are from the Mirpur region, will suffer when the extension of the Mangla Dam swamps ancestral and new homes, many of which have been built with hard-earned migrants' cash.

And it will be the second time families have faced the trauma.

Many of Bradford's Mirpuri immigrants came in search of work in the 1960s after the original Mangla Dam construction in 1967 displaced 100,000 people. Now the district's residents will relive the loss as the dam is raised by 30 feet to provide more hydro-electric power.

The second phase of the project, which will be completed by June 2007, will cause 8,023 homes to be lost underwater and cause 43,000 people to be displaced.

Bradford's next Lord Mayor, Councillor Choudhary Rangzeb, will lose his family home in Kharak which he visits twice a year.

He said: "Most Pakistani families in Bradford will be affected as they come from the region. Most have homes and land there which will be submerged. This is my ancestral home, where my father was born. It takes me back. All my ancestral graves will be washed away.

"People are seeing their homes destroyed twice - a lot of families will be split like last time."

Munir Ahmed, 51, a former care worker, of St Margaret's Road, Great Horton, will also see his family home ruined. He said: "A lot of families have sent money back to build beautiful houses - they have worked hard to improve the lives of relatives back home and now they are being destroyed. Hard-earned cash is being thrown in the water."

The revamp plans, which were announced in 2000, sparked widespread protest from Kashmiris in Pakistan and in England. The compensation package will include a minimum of £2,900 for a new house plus 25 square metres of land.

Javed Bashir, of Highfield, Keighley, an honorary visiting fellow at the University of Bradford, recently visited the area. He said the compensation package was inadequate. "A large chunk of the new Mirpur town that has been built with hard savings of migrant workers living in Bradford will be submerged in the water," he said.

A Bradford-based national group, Anti-Mangla Dam Extension Action Committee, was set up in 2001 to put pressure on the Pakistan government to halt the extension. Protests involving 300 people were staged outside the Pakistani Consulate in Bradford in 2005 and more are planned in the next two months.

Mahmood Kashmiri, national co-ordinator of the group, said: "Kashmiris were against the first dam construction and after 40 years they said they need more water and electricity. People are crying in Bradford, they don't want to lose their motherland.

"People don't think they can ever be fully compensated for the loss. We have given one sacrifice and don't want to give another one. It appears to be a generational sacrifice."