Civil and Military Gazette

"Fifteen deliberate cold-blooded murders may seem little enough to turn you gentlemen, from the tremendous task on which you are engaged, the creation of a State from a nation. But these fifteen shared the fate of many more. Few trains indeed come to Lahore without revealing similar atrocities."

"………we have waited in vain for responsible League condemnation of the dastardly train outrage near Kohat. In this eight people, including four women, were murdered, 20 wounded and one woman kidnapped, while 15 men, women and children are missing, as a result of an attack made by what Dr. Khan Sahib, Premier of the Frontier Province, describes as Muslim Leaguers in green uniforms…… League efforts should be made to help the authorities to trace the miscreants………."

"Passengers arriving by Sind Express lit Lahore on Saturday, August 19, 1947 related harrowing stories of murder. After the train left Gujrat, a small body of Muslim passengers armed with axes and knives repeatedly stopped it, visited each compartment in turn, ferreting out those of another community (Sikhs) and ruthlessly butchering them. Sometimes these crimes were committed while the train was moving, sometimes in presence of parties who rushed towards the line from the countryside whenever a stop was made. Some passengers attempted to save themselves by crawling under the carriages but these were pulled out and killed. Two leapt from the train and started across the fields. The train was stopped, chase given and the fugitives dispatched. The earlier victims were killed with hatches, the later only more slowly with knives. A woman and her three small children were among the last to die. Once the train stopped at a wayside station when no more victims remained for the sacrifice and the murderers apologized to their co-religionists on the platform for the zeal which left them (the latter) “no one to kill.”"