Biographers

"In the curfew if the Hindus and Sikhs came out, they were arrested, while Muslims went about armed, freely doing whatever mischief they liked. Stabbing of Hindus and Sikhs went on with the police looking on. Hindus’ and Sikhs’ houses were set on fire; even when the culprits who did this were arrested, the police did not take cognizance of the offence. A secret order was issued by Mehar Ghulam Mohammed, Inspector of Police who went from Amritsar, to the Muslim policemen to kill all non-Muslim policemen. Muslim police constables shot dead at sight any Hindu or Sikh."

"Towards the beginning of September, a Hindu-Sikh refugee train coming from West Punjab was attacked by a Muslim mob, abetted by the police and military, at Kamoke. The refugees in the train had been kept without water for two days. Whatever weapons of defence the refugees had, such as licensed guns, were taken away from them. The mob stabbed and speared the passengers, while the police shot down any one who tried to escape by running away. The Pakistan Military made a show of firing, but their shots were directed towards the sky and not the mob and after a short while they also joined the mob and the police in shooting down the passengers."

"Here too the curfew operated as everywhere in Pakistan. Muslims were free to move about during curfew hours, to set fire to houses of non-Muslims and to commit murders."

"In many places Muslim pirs directed these attacks and characterized them as a holy war waged against infidels, that is Hindus and Sikhs."

"Muslim soldiers on duty invariably acted as the Muslim police had so far done. They connived at Muslim mobs setting fire to the city and murdering Hindus and Sikhs, while they were very prompt to arrest any Hindu or Sikh found in any public place, any pretext serving for such action."

"Curfew was imposed, which confined Hindus and Sikhs to their houses while Muslims went about freely, setting fire with police help to Hindu and Sikh houses, killing and looting."

"There is a marked difference in the behaviour of Muslims and Sikhs towards women and children captured during this fight. While Muslims everywhere dishonoured, abducted or murdered Hindu and Sikh women and children, Sikhs never resorted to anything of which they might have reason to be ashamed. On the first day of attack, several Muslims got killed by an infuriated Sikh crowd in a locality which was at the junction of a Muslim and non-Muslim zone, not very far from the centre of the Sikh influence. More than one hundred Muslim women and children, whose menfolk had either been killed or had run away for safety, fell into the hands of the Sikhs. Sikhs kept them safe and fed them for the two or three days that the fighting lasted and all communications in the town were cut off, and later sent them under escort to the City Police Station, These women acknowledged the chivalry and courtesy of the treatment of the Sikhs towards them. (156)"

"The Muslims themselves were mostly steel-helmeted, and so could even sally out on Hindus and Sikhs, while Hindus and Sikhs, being unprovided with any such defence, got serious and even fatal injuries from these brickbat showers."

"Most of the male refugees were butchered or shot dead. The women were sorted. The elderly ones were later butchered, while the younger ones were distributed. Children were murdered by being flung with force on the ground."

"Here follow unprintable details of rape and brutality to these helpless women at the bands of Pakistan Military and Muslim goondas."

"Besides the Muslim mobs and assassins, Muslim police shot out of hand any Sikh or Hindu they could lay hands on. Muslim police are known to have gone about prowling of a night, to have sometimes called out of their homes Hindus and Sikhs and to have shot them dead on the spot. This practice they called ‘shikar’ and it was a terror for Hindus and Sikhs."

"The Muslim police was working with full vigour in implementing its policy of partiality towards Muslims. In the extensive house searches, both in Amritsar town and in the countryside, every semblance of a weapon was taken away from Sikhs-not only spears, but even wood-choppers and knives. Licensed weapons were confiscated so that whole groups of Hindus and Sikhs were left defenceless in time of attack."

"“On 4-10-47, a small caravan of about fifteen non-Muslims tried to cross the bridge Ravi from Pakistan to this side. They were entrapped by the Muslim Military picket on the other side of the bridge. That caravan included four women. The male members of the caravan were murdered during the night. Our Military picket on this side of the bridge heard shrieks and cries of the victims. The Gurkha Jamadar in charge of the picket saw the women with Military (Muslim). They kept those women in their tents during the night and the military picket on our side heard their shrieks too during the night as if they were being raped. Later on those women never crossed the bridge on this side."

"A British Officer of the M. E. O. of West Punjab reported (September, 1947) that at a place near Sheikhupura he was called to rescue a Hindu girl, who had been carried away by Muslim National Guards. He found the girl in a hut with 4 of her captors, who had raped and cut off her breasts and were now frying them. He shot the lot."

"“Girls abducted from Mirpur side are sold in Jhelum city at Rs. 10 or 20 each. The local police refuses to interfere on the ground that the girls were not removed from the Punjab and also they express their helplessness because of the attitude of the armed Pathans possessing these girls. I am bringing this to the notice of the West Punjab Government but I am afraid nothing would come out of it and in our helplessness all these girls shall have to stand hardships for all their lives and suffer misery.” According to the information received most of the girls abducted from Jammu and Kashmir States and some of the girls abducted from Gujranwala, Jhelum, Mianwali, Jhang and Dera Ghazi Khan districts are taken to the North-west Frontier Province and from there to the tribal territory. At Mansera and some other places (North-West Frontier) there are regular camps where Hindu girls are being sold."

"The Muslim localities were situated in a ring quite deep all around the town of Amritsar. Hindu and Sikh areas were in the interior of the circle, and once the Muslims decided to close in upon these areas and shut egress and ingress into the city, Hindus and Sikhs were shut in and cut off from the rest of the world... In the meantime, without any provocation being given by any Hindu or Sikh, Muslim goondas in thousands collected in all parts of the City, especially in the outskirts, near the approaches to which areas the Muslims had an overwhelmingly large population. The collecting of Muslim parties and mobs all over the town and up till a great depth from all approaches practically closed the town to those who were outside it and made it impossible for those inside it to get out."

"The police were not merely neutral in this, but were planning for, leading and aiding the Muslim aggressors."

"Attacks on Sikhs found anywhere became a feature of the Muslim campaign in Amritsar. Any Sikh found anywhere on the road was attacked and killed. A large number of Sikhs coming from the villages around Amritsar, and many pilgrims coming from outside to visit Darbar Sahib were stabbed by Muslim parties lying in ambush."

"The assailants stopped the arriving train by climbing on to the outer signal and raising it. Then the mob, concealed in Muslim houses along the railway track, fell upon the helpless Hindu and Sikh passengers, and murdered a good number, including women and children before the train could be restarted and brought to Amritsar station. Trains and lorries coining from Jullundur and Pathankot and Narowal were similarly attacked by Muslims of this suburb and Sikhs killed with great brutality. Men, women and children were chased like animals and gored to death with spears. This was the first train-attack made anywhere in this conflict, and this kind of thing was repeated by Muslim Leaguers in many places in the subsequent months."

"The important village of Manihala was attacked on the 20th August under the direction of, the notorious Magistrate M. G. Cheema. Hindus and Sikhs were ordered at 10 p.m. to quit their homes at half an hour’s notice, otherwise fire would be opened on them. The entire Hindu and Sikh population got ready to leave within the stipulated period, and naturally could not carry anything with them. Just outside the village, the Muslims fell upon them, and abducted a large number of women and killed some people."

"This social arrogance made the temper of Muslim aggression grow hotter and hotter as August 15 approached. Attacks on Hindus and Sikhs everywhere, burning of their houses and shops, hounding them out of their villages and fields in every district, became the order of the day. In this campaign the police and military, which now with the partition of personnel and assets between India and Pakistan were completely Muslim on the Pakistan side, gave not only active help to the riotous Muslim mobs, but often-times led them, directed their operations and finished off the job of murder where the mobs could not succeed single-handed."

"No one in the whole city ate anything on this night; no one slept a wink. The whole town was ringing with the yells of the attacking Muslims and the defiant shouts of Hindus and Sikhs. Flames were rising and tall buildings were gutted with huge fires. (149)"

"The evidence of the associates of the Khan (Iftikhar Hussain Khan Mamdot) in the Punjab Muslim League revealed that funds had been spent on the purchase of arms, in 1946 and 1947, for attack on non-Muslims in the Punjab. (p. 445)"

"21st June dawned terrible and grim in Lahore, even more than the two previous days. On this day a bus was stopped by Muslim goondas outside Mochi Gate, a purely Muslim locality. Hindu and Sikh passengers were pulled out, the Muslims being asked to stand in a separate line. The Muslim goondas on such occasions used the term ‘chhatra’ (a sheep) or ‘suer’ (pig) for the victims, and asked the drivers if they happened to be Muslims, to surrender their prey to them. 10 of these unhappy passengers were stabbed to death and left dead on the Circular Road. On this day the city, of Lahore, both walled and new, saw altogether 46 fires raging in it. In the walled city alone, a thickly populated area, concentrating a population of 3 lakhs in a square mile or so, 20 fires were burning in the Hindu and Sikh localities. Gurdwara Baoli Sahib inside Dabbi Bazar in the walled city was attempted to be burned, but was saved by the arrival of a military patrol. On the 22nd June, the campaign of arson took a still more widespread and ‘all-out’ form. On this day the town had as many as 69 fires burning in its different localities. Shahalmi Gate, the biggest and busiest trading centre of Lahore, almost entirely Hindu, was the spot selected for destruction by Muslims this time. (103)"

"In May the attack on Hindus and Sikhs assumed very large proportions. Regular burning, murder and pillage started. On May 18, the Muslims of Mozang, a high Muslim majority area of Lahore attacked the Hindu and Sikh inhabitants. The Muslim mob is said to have been ten thousand and was supplied with rifles which report speaks of as having come from the armoury of the police station of Mozang, through the courtesy of the Muslim Sub-Inspector. The arms thus loaned were to be returned after “use”. Several Hindu and Sikh buildings were set on fire, and moving about in the Mozang area became extremely risky for any Hindu or Sikh. (97)"

"July (1947) was a month of violent and widespread attacks on Hindus and Sikhs in Lahore. The elimination and extermination of these minorities by the Muslims was proceeding apace now, and the field covered was coming to embrace more and new spheres of life and activity. (105)"

"In dozens of places in Hindu and Sikh houses this kind of action was repeated: A group of Muslims would force open the door of a Hindu or Sikh house, no matter even though the curfew would be on. The men-folk would be led out under the pretence of interrogation by some policeman who would be in the party. Outside the men would be stabbed to death. Then the property would be systematically looted. The women were killed if they happened to be old. The younger women were abducted and raped. In the Mozang area, a Sikh family of six or seven men and as many women met such a fate. The men were led out and killed. The women jumped down from the upper store of their house to escape dishonour. They were seriously injured, though none died. But the experience was widespread."

"During the night, the Hindu and Sikh quarters got hell. Parties of Muslims would go about shouting Pakistan and Islamic slogans, setting fire to Hindu and Sikh houses... Hindus and Sikhs trying to escape from flames were lynched by the mob. A large part of Amritsar was reduced to cinders and rubble in the fires of this night and the one following it. If one stood on the top of a high building in the night, red flames could be seen rising high, spread over large areas, lending a terrible and awful glow to the darkness of the night."

"Muslim leaders deliberately spread false and baseless atrocity stories about East Punjab, and incited Muslims everywhere to murder and drive out Hindus and Sikhs."

"In the history of the Muslim League War on the Hindus and Sikhs of the Punjab in 1947, Amritsar occupies an outstanding position. It was in this city, along with Lahore, though with an intensity even greater than in the latter town, that the most sustained war, lasting for over five months was waged on the Hindus and Sikhs, especially the latter, by the Amritsar Muslims. In the scheme of the Muslim League, Amritsar appears to have been Theatre of War No. 1. ... Amritsar, to use a not inappropriate parallel, became a kind of Stalingrad of this Muslim League-Sikh War."

"In Amritsar as in Lahore one might rarely come across a Hindu or Sikh policeman, else all the force was Muslim. The Muslim police helped Muslims to collect arms both lethal and firearms and ammunition. Smuggling was done in collusion with the Muslim police who were posted on all strategic points. Storage of arms and petrol, the latter for purposes of quick arson, was done in houses and buildings which were protected from detection by the Muslim police."

"Again, the operation of the curfew was made to work in favour of the Muslim assailants and to the detriment of the Hindus and Sikhs who might want to protect their houses from burning. Muslim goondas or even Muslim policemen set fire to Hindu and Sikh houses during curfew hours, and no Hindu or Sikh was allowed, on pain of being shot, to come out of his house to fight the fire. This happened both in Lahore and Amritsar. The police stood guard while Muslims broke open Hindu and Sikh houses and shops and carted away the loot, at great leisure. The dumps for such looted property were known to and guarded by the Muslim police. The police went shares with the looters. Hindu and Sikh officers were generally held under terror by Muslim policemen, and in some cases were attacked, or not protected when attacked by Muslim mobs, as in Amritsar, Dera Ismail Khan and other places. Sometimes rifles and rounds were supplied by Muslim policemen to Muslim mobs. Muslim policemen went about in lorries and jeeps sniping at Hindus and Sikhs, and in several cases asking men to come out of their houses on some pretext and then shooting them dead. This happened in a number of cases in Amritsar, and in other places."

"They had perhaps a long-range plan as well, of which we got hints from the way the Muslims prepared for an attack on the Hindus and Sikhs of Delhi on the Punjab scale. That plan evidently was to create centres of Muslim disaffection and rebellion against the future Government of the Indian Dominion, and to prepare the way for occupation of the East Punjab, Delhi and whatever else might come into the bag, by Pakistan. With Kashmir thrown in, the empire of Pakistan on the western side would stretch from at least the Jumna westward. This was the ambitious Pakistan Plan. In order to make such a plan a success, it was very essential that Hindus and Sikhs must be thoroughly beaten down and driven, as far as possible, from the Muslim zone, which was designed to spread as far cast as the Jumna."

"After the elimination of minorities had been effected to a great extent in the Rawalpindi Division and in parts of the Multan Division, and a large part of Amritsar had been devastated, it was decided by the Muslim Leaguers to drive Hindus and Sikhs out of Lahore by methods of large-scale murder, loot and arson, for which the police was very willing accomplice. (97)"

"Baoli Sahib Gurdwara, situate in Dabbi Bazar, and close to two thickly populated Muslim areas, was burned on the 4th June. The place was in flames, and such Sikhs as were inside it were shot dead or roasted alive. (108-9) (Lahore)"

"The Muslim League leaders pursued a path contrary to the spirit in which an appeal like the Gandhi-Jinnah appeal should have been followed up. They continued to visit troubled areas like Amritsar for further incitement and for giving directions for new attacks. They continued with a pose of hypocritical innocence, to denounce imaginary Hindu-Sikh atrocities against Muslims. A full-hearted condemnation of the Rawalpindi Carnage or the Multan destruction never came from the Muslim League. (112)"

"The Muslims then took to stabbing and assaulting of stray Hindus and Sikhs and to setting fire to Hindu and Sikh houses and buildings. For this kind of warfare they had long been trained. Stabbing had been one of the items in which Muslims, whether members of the Muslim National Guards or not, had been given special training, as the facsimile of the certificate given earlier will show. For efficient arson they had collected petrol and other incendiaries, which were pumped into a building, and over the sprayed woodwork a piece of burning cotton or other flaming object thrown. In a few minutes the whole place would catch fire, and the entrapped inmates would either be burnt alive, or would be killed by the Muslims who would be waiting outside to pounce upon them as they struggled out of the flames. Before this, in Calcutta and other towns Muslim Leaguers had tried this method of warfare. It left the Hindus and Sikhs aghast, as they were not provided with the means of defence against such a total war of extermination. With the police planning with, aiding and shielding the Muslim League goondas, Hindus and Sikhs felt the situation becoming desperate for them. Stabbing and waylaying of Hindus and Sikhs became a common occurrence during these days. Hindus and Sikhs going about singly or even in small groups were almost certain to be stabbed to death. In tongas, in buses and even at the Railway Station they were not safe, for Muslims would be lurking with daggers concealed on them, which they could use skilfully and with fatal effect."

"The conduct of the police at once changed even on the first day when the Hindus and Sikhs took out a procession in protest against the attempt at foisting Pakistan on the Punjab. The procession of Hindu and Sikh students was perfectly nonviolent. It only raised slogans, but these were in no way against Muslims as such. There was no evidence that this agitation would either grow violent or hold within itself any potentialities detrimental to peace. It was constitutional agitation. Yet the police fired on this procession and several students were killed; many were injured. This was, in the words of the Sikh leader Giani Kartar Singh ‘an attempt to crush, appositive to Pakistan with police aid.’ He further declared, ‘The police did not fire in Lahore for a single day during all the 34 days of Muslim League agitation. It is amazing they could not tolerate our meetings for a single day.’"

"A Sikh was standing at a milk-shop, buying milk. He was stabbed while standing there and killed. A Hindu was going on a bicycle. He was stopped on the road by a group of Muslims, asked to prove whether he was Hindu or Muslim, and on it being ascertained that he was a Hindu, he was put on the road, and his throat cut with slow torture like an animal slaughtered in the Muslim way. (96)"

"All this was done in village after village after the Muslims had given assurances of safety on the Koran to Hindus. Hindu women were molested and abducted. Altogether 50 villages in this tehsil were looted with arson, murder and abduction of women. Ears, noses and breasts of women were cut off, and they were raped in the presence of their husbands, brothers, fathers and sons. Such Hindus as approached Muslims with messages of peace were brutally and cynically murdered by these League gangs. Forcible conversions of Hindus occurred on a large scale. It is estimated that Hindus were wiped out in this district over an area of about 500 square miles."

"All these atrocities on Hindus and Sikhs brought no condemnation whatever from the Muslim League leaders. They either kept silent about them, or continued to trot out imaginary atrocities on Muslims. This not only encouraged the Muslim goondas, but gave them the confidence that they could go on safely with the blessings of the League leaders. Defence Leagues of Muslim lawyers and others were set up to rescue from the clutches of the law murderers and beasts in human shape who had perpetrated unspeakable atrocities on innocent and defenceless human beings. The Muslim League Press continued to protest against the so-called police excesses in Founding up Muslim bad characters and criminals, against whom action in fact was inadequate and very much belated. Such action as was taken, came when the military appeared on the scene, and when the Punjab Government decided a little to modify its disastrous policy of making the Punjab Police Department as entirely Muslim preserve."

"The award of the Boundary Commission, which in effect was the award of Sir Cyril Radcliffe was based on the population figures and any ‘other factors’ did not enter at all into its determination. And so the Sikhs were not only cut into twain, but their best lands and holiest shrines and perhaps the most enterprising portion of their population were thrown to the wolves."

"So, attacks on trains and buses, burning of whole quarters of towns, murders of thousands with unspeakable atrocities proceeded unchecked or uncondemned by the League. Its plan of action was succeeding admirably. Pakistan was coming within near sight by every act of lawlessness committed by the League adherents, for it was only another argument for separate states for two such hostile peoples as Hindus and Muslims."

"This kind of behaviour has been found to be characteristic of Muslims during the last Punjab disturbances: peace-makers and those who were specifically sent for to negotiate have been done to death. The Muslim Leaguers have respected no canon of civilized warfare. Women and children have been murdered, atrocities committed and brutalities indulged in."

"Cambellpur witnessed atrocities on Hindus and Sikhs, even much worse and on a larger scale. In Rajar, in Tehsil Fatehjung of the Cambellpur district on March 10, the Muslim mob which attacked was armed with rifles. In this attack 300 Sikhs were killed and 3 Gurdwaras were burnt and the Sikh Scripture was desecrated. In this place, 116 Sikhs including women and children there roasted alive inside a Gurdwara. 95 women were abducted and forcibly married to Muslims. All Sikh houses were burnt and looted."

"About the same time, be it noted, another Muslim mob killed Hindu and Sikh passengers in a train while it was held up outside Sharifpura, a suburb of Amritsar. Train hold-ups and killing of Hindu and Sikh passengers was a regular feature of the Muslim League plan of action, as various incidents from March, right up till January, 1948 show."

"In the villages Pand and Tali Pandi in this District on March 9, Sikh houses were looted and burnt on a large scale. An ultimatum was given to Sikhs to embrace Islam and a large number were forcibly converted. Such of the Sikhs as did not get converted, were brutally done to death, and these included old women and children. Some were also burnt alive. In the village of Jhan, the entire Hindu and Sikh population was wiped out. In Parial, 150 Hindus and Sikhs out of its total population of 160 were burnt alive while they were taking shelter in the Gurdwara. In the villages of Chakri and Dheri, Sikhs fought against overwhelming numbers and many were killed."

"At Nara, in the tehsil of Kahuta, Sikh women and children were burnt alive, and the women were tortured in ways most devilishly ingenious and sadistic, which it is not possible for any decent human being to describe."

"In Bamali, on March 8, about 80 Sikhs were killed and more than 105 were abducted. Some Sikhs in this village killed their womenfolk to save them from certain dishonour at the hands of the Muslim invaders. In Banda 20 were killed, including women and children. The Gurdwara here too was burnt."

"On March 7, the Frontier Mail was stopped by a Muslim mob at Taxila Railway Station, in Rawalpindi district. Hindu and Sikh passengers, especially the latter, were pulled out and 22 dead bodies were left on the platform."