"Conditions in the rural areas of Rawalpindi beggar description. On March 6, 1947, meetings were held in the village mosques and the Muslims were told that the Jumma Mosque at Rawalpindi had been razed to the ground by Hindus and Sikhs and that the city streets were littered with Muslim corpses The audience were exhorted to avenge these wrongs The village population of the district of Rawalpindi has a large proportion of Muslim military pensioners possessing firearms and other weapons These men, in- cited in this manner, rose up against the non-Muslim residents and attacked one village after another The modus operand: was almost invariably the same A mob of Muslims armed with all kinds of weapons, shouting slogans and beating drums, approached a selected village and surrounded it from all sides A few non- Muslim residents were immediately killed to strike terror throughout the village The rest were asked to embrace Islam If they refused or showed reluctance a ruthless assault was launched upon non-Muslim life and property. Some members of the mob started looting and burning their houses and shops Others searched out young and good-looking girls and carried them away Not infrequently young women were molested and raped .n the open, while all around them frenzied hooligans rushed about shouting, looting and setting fire to houses Most of the non-Muslims would leave their houses and run to the local Gurdwara or a house affording some measure of protection or defence and there men, women and children, huddled together, would hear the noise of carnage, see the smoke rising from their burning homes and wait for the end The horror of what they saw or heard made them insensible to pain or suffering Some women would commit suicide or suffer death at the hands of their relations with stoic indifference, others would jump into a well or be burnt alive uttering hysterical cries The men would come out and meet death m a desperate sally against the marauders"