cities-in-pakistan

"The Bodhisatta was once the youngest of one hundred sons of the king of Benares. He heard from the Pacceka Buddhas, who took their meals in the palace, that he would become king of Takkasilā if he could reach it without falling a prey to the ogresses who waylaid travellers in the forest. Thereupon, he set out with five of his brothers who wished to accompany him. On the way through the forest the five in succession succumbed to the charms of the ogresses, and were devoured. One ogress followed the Bodhisatta right up to the gates of Takkasilā, where the king took her into the palace, paying no heed to the Bodhisatta's warning. The king succumbed to her wiles, and, during the night, the king and all the inhabitants of the palace were eaten by the ogress and her companions. The people, realising the sagacity and strength of will of the Bodhisatta, made him their king."

"Islamabad, “the city of Islam,” the capital of Pakistan, was new. It had been built about twenty years before by a military government for no apparent reason except perhaps that a new, well-laid-out city, separate from the messiness of Asia, appealed to the military mind, and the sudden setting down of a Western-style city (like the importation of United States arms) gave the illusion that the twentieth century had been finally dealt with on its own terms, and that both Islam and Pakistan were on the march."

"Karachi at its worst is a Karachi unconcerned with people who exist outside the storyteller’s circle, a Karachi oblivious to people and places who aren’t familiar enough for nicknames. What I’ve sometimes mistaken for intimacy is really just exclusion. But Karachi is always dual. Houses are alleys; car thieves are the people to help you when your car won’t start; pollution simultaneously chokes you and makes you gasp at the beauty of unnatural sunsets; a violent, fractured place dismissive of everyone outside its boundaries is vibrant, embracing, accepting of outsiders; and, yes, selfishness is the consequence of love."

"But just below appearances in Karachi, below what was easily graspable, was the faith, and the fever of the faith, which took many forms, and nearly always gave a phantasmagoric quality to an encounter."

"Nothing definitive is recorded about the town’s first settlers. In the 3rd century AD, Kanishka, the Buddhist ruler of the Kushan empire, occupied Chitral. In the 4th century AD, the Chinese overran the valley. Raees rule over Chitral began in 1320 and came to an end in the 15th century. From 1571 onwards Chitral was the capital of the princely state of Chitral under the rule of the Katur Dynasty."

"Sialkot has many historical, religious and romantic associations with the past According to popular legends the city was founded by Raja Sala, the uncle of the Pandavas and re-founded, in the time of Vikramaditya, by Raja Salivahan who built the fort and the city on their present sites Puran Bhagat, the saint and hero of popular romances, who refused the incestuous advances of his step-mother and was made to undergo horrible tortures, was the son of this Sahvahan The well in which he was thrown by the order of the wicked Rant lies a few miles from Sialkot and, until its desecration and partial demolition by the Muslims in August 1947, used to be a place of pilgrimage There 1s a Sikh shrine dedicated to Guru Nanak and near it Darbar Baoh Sahib, a covered well, built by a Rayput disciple of Baba Nanak Both places are held in great veneration by the Sikh community. During the Moghul times, Sialkot became the headquarters of a fiscal district and has renamed so to the present day The Emperor Jahangir passed through the district on his way to Kashmir and recorded in his diary that he found the surroundings delightful."

"The British had ruled here for under a hundred years, and more than thirty years had passed since they had left, but old Rawalpindi remained a town of British India: in the Mall, a street of hotels and gardens; in some of its old-fashioned shops on the Kashmir Road; in its military and administrative residences."

"Rawalpindi, twenty miles away, was the older city. In one direction it sprawled towards Islamabad; but in the centre little had changed. In the bazaar there were still the high, dark-timbered, verandahed and latticed houses of the Sikhs and Hindus who had predominated in the little town before partition and had then been displaced. The old British Rawalpindi club was still in business—the ceiling lights a little dimmer, the walls a muddier yellow, the uniforms of the waiters a little grubbier, the atmosphere at mealtimes more highly spiced."

"In the year 973 H. (1565 A.D.,) near the end of his life, ‘Isa Tarkhan, proceeded with his son, Mirza Muhammad Baki, in the direction of Bhakkar. As they drew near the town of Durbela, a dependency of Bhakkar, Mahmud Khan, having strengthened his stronghold, sent forth his army to meet them, for, thought he, what breach of contract is this? They bring an army into my territory! What can be their object? It was the intention of Muhammad Baki to detach the Parganah of Durbela, from the province of Bhakkar, and to incorporate it in that of Siwan; but he was frustrated in this design by the army of Mahmud Khan, which was powerful, and was everywhere prepared for fight. Blood had not yet been spilled, when, suddenly, news came from Thatta, that the Firingis had passed Lahori Bandar, and attacked the city. The gates were closed, said the despatch; if the army returned without delay, the place would be delivered; otherwise, [p. 26] the enemy was strong, and would effect his object. This intelligence caused the Mirza to desist from prosecuting the quarrel any further. Leaving the country under the rule of the Khan, he speedily embarked in his boats, and departed. Before he could arrive, the Firingis had sacked the city, and filled it with fire and slaughter. Many of ‘the inhabitants had found an asylum in the J ama’ Masjid of Mir Farrukh Arghun, which they quitted, on hearing of the Mirza’s approach. The mode of the Firingis comin was as follows: – Between the town of Thatta and Lahon Bandar is a distance of two days journey-both by land and by water; beyond this, it is another day’s march to the sea. There is a small channel, (called nar in the language of Thatta), communicating with the port; it is in some places about ten tanabs wide, in others, something more. It is unfordable. Between the port and the ocean there is but one inhabited spot, called Sui Miani. Here a guard belonging to the Mir Bandar, or port-master, with a loaded piece of ordnance, is always stationed. Whenever a ship enters the creek, it intimates its approach by firing a gun, which is responded to by the guardhouse, in order, by that signal, to inform the people at the port, of the arrival of a strange vessel. These again, instantly send word of its arrival to the merchants of Thatta, and then embarking on boats, repair to the place where the guard is posted. Ere they reach it, those on the look-out have already enquired into the nature of the ship. Every vessel and trader must undergo this questioning. All concerned in the business, now go in their boats, (ghrabs) to the mouth of the creek. If the ship belong to the port it is allowed to move up and anchor under Lahori Bandar; if it belong to some other port, it can go no further, its cargo is transferred into boats, and forwarded to the city. To be brief, when these Firingi traders had got so far, and learned that the king of the country was away on a distant expedition, they felt that no serious obstacle could be made to their advance. The Mir Bandar wished to enforce the regulations, but he was plainly told by the foreigners that they had no intention of staying at the Bandar, but that they intended [p. 27] to proceed on to Thatta, in the small boats (ghrabs) in which they had come. There they would take some relaxation, sell their goods, buy others, and then return. The ill-provided governor, unable to resist them by force, for their plans had been well laid, was fain to give in; so, passing beyond the Bandar, the Firingis moved in boats, up the river Sind towards Thatta, plundering as they went all the habitations on the banks. The ruler of the country being away, no one had sufficient power to arrest the progress of the invaders. They reached the city unmolested; but here the garrison, left by the Mirza, defended the place with the greatest gallantry. A spirited contest with artillery took place on the banks of the river. In the end the defenders were overpowered; the enemy penetrated the city, and had made themselves fully masters of it, when the Mirza arrived in all haste. As soon as they heard of his being near, with a powerful army, they loaded their boats with as much spell as they could contain, and withdrew. The Mirza, who had previously laid the foundation of a citadel for protection against the Arghuns, now deemed it necessary to encircle his palace and the whole city, with fortifications. His reign ended with his life in the year 984 H. (1576 A.D.) His wealth and kingdom passed into the hands of his son – Muhammad Baki."

"“…Julal-ood-Deen now occupied Tutta, destroyed all the temples, and built mosques in their stead; and on one occasion detached a force to Nehrwala (Puttun), on the border of Guzerat…”"

"Peshawar was the first city that Mahmud selected for the maiden expedition of his holy war against Hind in 1001. This ancient city originally named Purushapura (City of Men), invaluable in the geostrategic realm as the gateway to the historic Khyber Pass, would get a taste of renewed savagery that paled in comparison to its long-forgotten destruction at the hands of the Huns. Purushapura was perhaps the most pre-eminent city of the Gandhara region and retained its fame for nearly half a millennium. The general region was Vaēkərəta, or Gandhara, the sixth (or seventh) most beautiful city on earth created by Ahura Mazda18 himself. It was the crown jewel of Bactria and held sway over Takshashila, perhaps the greatest university town of the ancient world. During the pre-Mauryan period, it was the western capital of the Gandhara Mahajanapada. After Alexander’s death, his successor, Seleucus Nicator, ceded it to Chandragupta Maurya who further enhanced its prestige. It later became the capital of the Kushan Empire with its magnificent Buddhist stupa built by Kanishka. At its zenith, the vibrant Purushapura was an awesome cultural amalgam pulsating with excellence in art, sculpture, architecture and philosophy. Archaeological excavations and extant coinage of the period reveal a picture of an extraordinary cultural and artistic fusion of Hindu, Buddhist and Hellenistic schools. Purushapura was also perhaps the most important centre of the Gandhara School of Art."

"In March and April 1947, Sikhs had been brutally massacred and looted and they were abused as cowards because they had not reacted at once with violence. As a matter of fact Lord Mountbatten yielded to his pro-Muslim advisers and stationed the major portion of the Punjab Boundary Force in East Punjab with the result that there was no force to check or control the terrible massacres of Hindus and Sikhs that occurred in Sheikhupura and other places. We should certainly like an impartial investigation into the events of those days and we have no doubt it will be found that while, on the Indian side, it was the spontaneous outburst of a people indignant at what they considered the weakness and the appeasement policy of their leadership, on the Muslim side, the League, the bureaucracy, the police and the army worked like Hitler’s team with the tacit if not open approval of those in charge of the Pakistan Government."

"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)"

"Now let me give you a sample of the leadership which Muslim society has produced so far, and in an ample measure. The foremost that comes to my mind is Liaqat Ali Khan, the first Prime Minister of Pakistan. Immediately after partition, there was a shooting in Sheikhupura in which many Hindus who were waiting for repatriation in a camp, were shot down. There was a great commotion in India, and Pandit Nehru had to take up the matter in his next weekly meeting with Liaqat Ali in Lahore. The Prime Minister of Pakistan had brought the Deputy Commissioner of Sheikhupura with him. The officer explained that the Hindus had broken out of the camp at night in the midst of a curfew, and the police had to open fire. Pandit Nehru asked as to why the Hindus had broken out of the camp. The officer told him that some miscreants had set the camp on fire. Pandit Nehru protested to Liaqat Ali that this was an amazing explanation. Liaqat Ali replied without batting an eye that they had to maintain law and order. This exemplifies the quality of leadership which Muslim society has produced so far.…"

"Dear My. Jinnah, The refugee problem is assuming gigantic proportions. The only limit that I can see to it is that set by the Census reports. According to reports the movement across the border runs into a lakh or so a day. At Chuharkana in the Sheikhupura district I saw between a lakh and a lakh and a half of Sikhs collected in the town and round it in the houses, on the roofs and everywhere. It was exactly like the Magh Mela in Allahabad. It will take 45 trains to move them, even at 4,000 people per train or if they are to stay there, they will have to be given 50 tons of ata a day. At Govindarh in the same district there was a collection of 30,000 or 40,000 Mazbi Sikhs with arms. They refused even to talk to the Deputy Commissioner, and Anglo-Indian, who advanced with a flag of truce. They shot at him and missed. Finally arrangements were made to evacuate the lot. I am telling every one that I don’t care how the Sikhs get across the border: the great thing is to get rid of them as soon as possible. There is still little sign of the 3 Lakhs Sikhs in Lyallpur moving, but in the end they too will have to go."

"But the systematic manner in which Pakistan leaders are attempting to paint the people of this country as demons out to destroy innocent Muslims, while hiding, it not defending, the horrible outrages perpetrated by members of their own community from Calcutta to Sheikhupura is nothing but an attempt to defame this country and throw dust in the eyes of the outside world regarding the crimes committed by their co-religionists. They also know, as does everyone in this country, that the Punjab disaster was but the culminating act of the tragedy which began with the unprincipled campaign of communal hated and violence which they and their party leaders had been preaching for years as the only means of securing the ambition of their heart, namely, the separation of a part of this country where they could play the role of rulers, even though at the cost of unexampled suffering and misery to their own co-religionists both in Pakistan and India."

"Sheikhupura Hindus and Sikhs were perhaps, after Rawalpindi and Multan, the worst sufferers at the hands of the Pakistani fanaticism and cold-blooded murderous frenzy. The blow fell on them suddenly and swifly-leaving between 10,000 and 20,000 of them dead in two days. The conspiracy that was hatched in Sheikhupura between the Muslim Leaguers, the Civil Officers, Police and Military for the extermination of Hindus and Sikhs of this town and the district governed by it, is perhaps the worst on human record, showing calculated devilry on such a large scale."

"As soon as the Award of the Boundary Commission was announced and they knew that Sheikhupura had been awarded to Pakistan, the Muslim Leaguers and their allies, the Pakistan Police and Military, feverishly began to perfect and execute their plans for the looting and murdering of Hindus and Sikhs. Attacks on the countryside began as early as the 18th August; and within a week Sikhs and Hindus everywhere in villages,.. were being driven out en masse. During this time the plan was also made by which Sheikhupura town and other towns in the district were also to be cleared of Hindus and Sikhs."

"Sikhs were being chased. The Muslim mob was followed by the military. When Sikhs gave a fight the Muslim mob retreated. Then the military took the lead and took up positions against Hindu-Sikh areas at about 2 o’clock (day). By about 5 o’clock the Hindu-Sikh population of this area had been killed, and the houses were in flames. Muslim mobs now swelled and spread out to attack to different parts of the town. Street after street was surrounded by Muslim mobs, military and police. The looting, burning and murdering continued all over the town for more than 24 hours, and stopped only on the evening of the 26th. Some Hindus and Sikhs saved themselves by hiding; others ran out during the night. 3,000 Hindus and Sikhs were killed by the military in Atma Singh’s factory alone. Altogether 15,000 Hindus and Sikhs were killed in this massacre. Pt. Nehru, at the time lie toured the West Punjab with Mr. Liaqat Ali Khan, estimated the number of those killed in Sheikhupura at 22,000. Women were molested. Hindus and Sikhs who resisted the molesters were shot dead on the spot. In the Namdhari Gurdwara two wells were filled with the bodies of Hindu and Sikh women who committed suicide to save themselves from dishonour. Two other wells were similarly filled... This is in brief the tragic story of Sheikhupura."

"The countryside of Sheikhupura, like that of Lahore was combed for Sikhs and Hindus, who were turned out of their houses, and murdered in large numbers. Muslims fell upon Hindus and Sikhs all over the district with a brutality and thoroughness the extent of which it is difficult to imagine..."

"One of the memorable and heroic battles given by Sikhs took place at Bhuler Chak 119, in the jurisdiction of Sangla Hill Police Station. This large village was attacked on the 30th August. This village is located close to the borders of other districts, notably Gujranwala and Sialkot. All through August Muslims of the neighbouring areas continued to make preparations for attacks on Sikhs, with the active complicity of Muslim officials. After the 15th August, Bhular was the centre where Hindus and Sikhs of a considerable radius around came together for shelter. On the 30th, Muslims sent an ultimatum to the Sikhs of this place to vacate Bhuler, which the Sikhs indignantly rejected. Then Muslim mobs and police attacked from all sides. On the 1st September about 25,000 Muslims had gathered for attack. This mob attack, however, failed to break the morale of the Sikhs. Then armed police and Baluch Military stepped in to help the Muslim mob. Finding that the fight was unequal, Sikhs decided to die fighting, and killed their own womenfolk to save them from dishonour. A fierce and desperate battle ensued after this. Sikhs set fire to their own homes and property. About 200 Sikhs met their death in this engagement. The rest evacuated, fighting."

"Lyallpur constituted the richest spot the Sikhs possessed in the Punjab. It was purely a Sikh creation, economically speaking. Sikhs had converted by hard toil of generations a sandy waste which this area was, into the granary of the Punjab. The Lyallpur Sikhs were not only one of the most prosperous group among the Sikhs anywhere, but they were also very well-disciplined, independence-loving and had a highly developed social conscience. They had taken a leading part in the movements of education and reform which stirred the Sikh people in the twentieth century. They were a proud, assertive and militant kind of people, who would not easily take a beating from any one. It was of the Lyallpur Sikhs primarily and also of the Sheikhupura Sikhs that the official Pakistan publication said that they left the West Punjab ‘defiantly.’ Yes, the sturdy Sikhs of those areas left the West Punjab thoroughly defiantly, and not abjectly. It was they again, to turn out whom from West Punjab, Governor Mudie made up his mind firmly. In his letter to Governor-General Jinnah, quoted elsewhere, he said: “I am telling everyone that I don’t care how the Sikhs cross the border, the great thing is to get rid of them as soon as possible. There is still little sign of the 3 lakh Sikhs in Lyallpur moving, but in the end they too will have to go.”"

"The Lyallpur Sikhs, as has been pointed out above, were a resolute disciplined body of men and in these days they were fortunate in being served by a band of selfless and cool-headed leaders, who to shame the devil, decided to co-operate fully with the regulations of the Pakistan Government, which that Government never seriously put into effect. Some of these workers had to their credit the rescue of Muslim women and children trapped in East Punjab... During the months of September and October, 1947 the roads leading from West Punjab into India revealed one unending, melancholy procession, day after day, of Sikh men, women, children and cattle, all fatigued and hungry, as they trekked into India, some with their few salvaged belongings in carts and others on foot. These begrimed and harassed Sikhs were those driven out of Lyallpur by systematic and designed Pakistan terror."

"Until members of this numerically small but virile obstinate and deeply religious community, can (like British Catholics visiting Rome or Lourdes) buy a ticket for Nanakana Sahib or Panja Sahib confident of the ordinary decencies of international travel, there will be no stable peace in the two Punjabs, nor basis for Pakistan to rank herself as the full equal of other countries in standards of civilized modern tolerance……"

"The holiest of the holy of the Sikhs, Nanakana Sahib, birthplace of Guru Nanak-analogous to the Mecca of the Muslims and Jerusalem of the Christians. This Gurdwara also had a vast estate, developed along model lines as a farming colony, and it yielded an annual revenue to the Sikh community of about 20 lakhs of rupees."

"I am told that there are still left over 18,000 Hindus and Sikhs in Rawalpindi and 30,000 in the Wah Camp. I will repeat my advice that they should all be prepared to die rather than leave their homes. The art of dying bravely and with honour does not need any special training, save a living faith in God. Then there will be no abductions and no forcible conversions. I know that you are anxious I should go to the Punjab at the earliest moment. I want to do so. But if I failed in Delhi, it is impossible for me to succeed in Pakistan. For I want to go to all the parts and provinces of Pakistan under the protection of no escort save God. I will go as a friend of the Muslims as of others. My life will be at their disposal. I hope that I may cheerfully die at the hands of anyone who chooses to take my life. Then I will have done as I have advised all to do."

"It is unbelievable that barbarous acts such as were committed on innocent people in rural areas of the Rawalpindi Division could be possible in the Punjab."

"Travelling by air from Lahore to Rawalpindi I saw village after village completely burnt out... when a full casualty list of the district is known, it is likely to be in the neighbourhood of 10,000 in Rawalpindi city and district alone ... there is no question that the rural areas around Rawalpindi have witnessed a bloodbath without parallel since the Middle Ages. I have heard how all members of the minority communities... were locked in a single house which was set on fire."

"A number of other districts were involved In the words of Mr Akhtar Hussain, Chief Secretary to Government, Punjab, “With the news of grave events radiating from Lahore there has been bloodshed and burning m many districts and rural areas have paid the price levied by insensate fury as well as towns. The district of Rawalpindi was the worst affected area and the non Muslims who were in a small minority in the rural areas perished an large numbers.“"

"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"

"Some villages were completely wiped out. Houses and shops were looted and then burnt down and demolished. Conversion saved the lives of many but not their property. Refusal to accept Islam brought complete annihilation.The men were shot or put to the sword. In some cases small children were thrown in cauldrons of boiling oil. In one village men and women who refused to embrace Islam were collected together and after a ring of brambles and firewood had been placed around them they were burnt alive. A woman threw her four month old baby to save it from burning The infant was impaled upon a spear and thrown back into the fire. In Murree nearly a hundred houses belonging to non Muslims were systematically marked and burnt down. In as many as 110 villages attacks of this nature were made by Muslim mobs."

"Almost every village in the Rawalpindi District where non- Muslims lived was attacked and plundered in this manner and Hindus and Sikhs were murdered and subjected to indescribable barbarities. In Thoha Khalsa some Sikh women were thrown into a well, others jumped in of their own free will to save themselves from being raped. A mob of several thousand Muslims raided Harilal, the birth-place of the Akali leader Master Tara Singh. Master Tara Singh’s house was razed to the ground and his uncle, Gokal Singh, was killed. Kuri Dalal and Dehra Khalsa were looted and burnt. In Kallar the residents resisted the raiders for a time stubbornly, but the village was eventually looted and burnt, and large numbers of residents murdered."

"The attack came swiftly and over a vast area in the Rawalpindi Division,.. although the Hindus and Sikhs had for long to bear a state of seige [in the town of Rawalpindi], yet they were not murdered and pillaged on the scale on which this occurred in the unprotected and unarmed country-side, where it was general massacre of Hindus and Sikhs, especially of the latter. ... In the rural areas of Rawalpindi, however, it was a case of mass attack by Muslims, and a general massacre of Hindus and Sikhs. (78-79)"

"In 128 villages of Rawalpindi district, which were attacked over a period of several days, beginning from March 7, 1947, 7,000 Hindus and Sikhs have been enumerated in reports as killed. All casualties have not in some cases been traced or registered. The number of those wounded has been large too, though when these attacks were made, little mercy was shown by the assailants and they made a very thorough work of finishing of those who fell into their hands. Besides those killed and wounded about 1,000 Hindu and Sikh women were abducted, who were raped and dishonoured in a manner which would shame anyone with the least trace of civilization or religion in him. Women were raped in the presence of their husbands, brothers, fathers and sons. Later they were distributed among the Muslims to be kept as concubines or were forcibly married. A large number were carried into the tribal territory, and became untraceable. In almost all cases houses were burnt and property was looted. Quite often Gurdwaras were burnt down and the Sikh Scripture, Sri Guru Granth Sahib. torn or otherwise desecrated. In most of these villages the method followed by the Muslims to loot and kill the Hindu and Sikh populations was cynically treacherous. A village would be surrounded; messages would be sent to the Hindus and Sikhs to buy off the invaders with so such money. This demand would be complied with. But the invaders would still be there; and one night would open the attack on the small non-Muslim population of the place, and put as many to the sword as could not escape or as could be killed before military help arrived for succour, which, however in those lawless days was not very often. (80)"

"Forcible conversion was the other alternative to death for a non-Muslim. The ultimatum was given to the population of a village either to embrace Islam or to face death. Most Hindus and Sikhs preferred death to the shameful surrender of faith, and died, sometimes fighting and at other times with great tortures, at the hands of the sadist religious zealots of the Muslim League. Such women as could not be abducted or dishonoured, generally escaped this shame by immolating themselves. Thoha Khalsa village, of which an account will follow, is a classic example of such sacrifice of life on the part of 93 Sikh women of that place. This, the best known incident of its kind, however, is not the only one. In scores of places, both during the March attacks and the post-partition attacks on Hindus and Sikhs, women immolated themselves to escape dishonour at the hands of the maddened and ferocious lusting Muslim mobs. Those who were forcibly converted were, if they were Sikhs, shaved off and circumcised; the Hindus too were circumcized, even the grown-ups. The women converts were generally given in marriage, if they were unmarried or widows, to Muslims, the Nikah ceremony being performed by some local Maulvi. A large number of such shaven Sikh converts to Islam arrived as refugees in March, 1947 in Amritsar, Patiala and other places, from Rawalpindi and the Frontier Province. (81)"

"The assailants did not spare even little children. It was naked beastliness performing a devil’s dance. Children would be snatched from the hands of their parents, tossed on spears and swords, and sometimes thrown alive into the fire. Other cruelties equally horrible were perpetrated. Women’s breasts, noses and arms would he lopped off. Sticks and pieces of iron would be thrust into their private parts. Sometimes the bellies of pregnant women were ripped open and the unformed life in the womb thrown out. In some places processions of naked Hindu and Sikh women are also reported to have been taken out by the Muslims mobs. (81)"

"Maddened with the zeal for exterminating the ‘Kafirs’ and making room for the establishment of an Islamic State in Northern India, the League-led Muslim mobs combed hundreds of villages as has already been related above, in the Rawalpindi District."

"In Thoha Khalsa, on March 12, 1947 after long and heroic resistance, 200 Sikhs were killed. The women were asked to embrace Islam, but 93 of them, old and young, decided to escape dishonour by drowning themselves in a well, which they did. The Muslim invaders, aghast at this tragedy, fled from the place. A little later, the military arrived and rescued the survivors."

"In the village of Adiala, on March 8, 1947 Muslim mobs collected by beat of drum in broad day-light. The invaders raised a false alarm of a Sikh attack on themselves, and on this pretext, fell to looting the Hindu and Sikh quarters, which they did extensively. Hindus and Sikhs were ferreted out, and were burnt alive, stabbed or shot dead. The number of those killed was above a hundred. 40 were forcibly converted. The Muslim police watched the whole of this carnage going on, and did just nothing about it."

"Rawalpindi Division was ablaze. Its rural Hindu and Sikh population was almost entirely in refugee camps. The biggest of these camps was at Wah, in Campbellpur District, and its population was about 25,000. Another refugee camp, nearly as big, was situated at Kala, in Jhelum District. There were other refugee camps at smaller places. But most of the Hindus and Sikhs of this area had got so much panic-stricken that they preferred to leave this area altogether, and travelled east. The railway trains were full to capacity of destitute Hindu and Sikh refugees from places from Jhelum to Peshawar and other areas. They moved in search of shelter into the Sikh-Hindu majority districts of the Punjab, into the Punjab States, into the Jat States of Bharatpur, Dholpur, into Alwar, into Delhi and the U. P. Some moved even further east. Patiala State alone had, by April, as many as fifty thousand Sikh and Hindu refugees, who had to be fed, housed and clad, whose children had to be educated and who needed being settled in life again after being uprooted. Thousands of widows and orphans created a problem well-nigh insoluble in the face of the suddenness with which it had emerged. Destitutes were roaming every town and village of the Punjab east of Amritsar in search of food and shelter. Pitiable indeed was the condition of these people, who had become victims of an unprecedented kind of disaster. State Governments and private organizations like the Shromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, the Hindu Mahasabha and the Congress tried to do their best to relieve the distress of these unfortunates, but the task was gigantic. So, barring a microscopic minority of these uprooted people, who had means in the East Punjab, the others remained, practically speaking, destitutes for whom life held little hope. This was the state to which the Muslim League campaign had reduced about at least ten lakhs of enterprising, useful human beings. (89)"

"But the Muslim. Leaguers wanted to drive all Hindus and Sikhs from Lahore. If Lahore came to Pakistan, it would have been a good riddance and action according to plan if Hindus and Sikhs were made to vacate Lahore. It was calculated that the vast wealth accumulated by Hindus and Sikhs for generations in this magnificent city would fall into the hands of Muslims. If Lahore by any chance was allotted to India, it would have been a good thing to have destroyed this fine city, and to make a present of heaps of ashes and cinders to the new rulers of India on August 15, 1947. Such calculation and surging hate and malice appear to have directed the course of Muslim action in Lahore in the months from the beginning of June onwards. It is said also that the Muslim goondas of Lahore were put to shame by their compeers in Amritsar, who had done extremely well in murdering Hindus and Sikhs of that city and in reducing about a quarter of the town of Amritsar to ashes. In an interview to the Press Mr. Eustace, District Magistrate of Lahore revealed that the Muslim goondas of Amritsar sent, as a mark of sarcastic provocation churis (glass bangles) and mehndi (henna) to the goondas of Lahore, implying lack of manliness and feminity in them in not having ‘done’ anything against Hindus and Sikhs. The Lahore goondas were evidently stung to the quick, and stirred their ‘manliness’ not a little, by setting fire to a good part of the Hindu and Sikh localities of Lahore and letting loose on the city a campaign of stabbing and looting, which went on unimpeded with active police and official support. (101)"

"“It is said that Cabool was formerly named Zabool, from a kaffir, or infidel king, who founded it; hence the name of Zaboolistan. Some authors have stated, that the remains of the tomb of Cabool, or Cain, the son of Adam, are pointed out in the city; but the people have no such traditions. It is, however, a popular belief, that when the devil was cast out of heaven, he fell in Cabool. In Cabool itself there are not exactly traditions of Alexander, but both Herat and Lahore are said to have been founded by slaves of that coĵnqueror, whom they call a prophet. Their names were Heri (the old name of Herat) and Lahore. Candahar is said to be an older city than either of these.”"

"from the destined walls Of Cambala, seat of Cathian Can, And Samarchand by Oxus, Temir's throne To Paquin of Sinæan Kings; and thence To Agra and Lahore of Great Mogal."

"Lahore city, poison, violence, a watch and a quarter."

"For my parents, most of whose friends suddenly vanished, Lahore in the fifties was like a ghost town. The pain of Partition has been sensitively depicted in a number of short stories by the Urdu writer, Saadat Hasan Manto, and by poets like Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Sahir Ludhianvi. I had been three and a half years old in 1947. Pre-Partition Lahore, for me, existed only in numerous overheard conversations. The recent past became a subject for discussions, sometimes heated, but more often sad, and these could be heard in every quarter of the city. They frequently centred on the vibrancy of the town. During the twenties, thirties and forties, it had been an important cultural centre, a home for poets and painters, a city that was proud of its cosmopolitanism. Nineteen forty-seven had changed all that for ever. The old coffee houses and teashops were still in place, but the Hindu and Sikh faces had disappeared, never to return. This fact was soon accepted; political gossip and poetry reasserted their old primacy under new conditions."

"The centre of the town was swathed in red flags. It was my first demonstration and one that I remember to this day. The city was Lahore, which for many centuries had been a much envied metropolis in Northern India. Then the last conquerors had departed, leaving behind a divided subcontinent. The old town had become part of a new country – Pakistan. The founder of this state, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, an agnostic, had cynically used religion to create a ‘Muslim nation’. Jinnah had expressed the hope that Pakistan would, despite everything, remain a secular state, but the logic of history had proved fatal. All the Hindu and Sikh families in Lahore had fled across confessional frontiers. Little ‘Lahores’ had sprung up in Delhi."

"The Hindus of the Punjab had quite as heavy an economic stake in these districts as the Sikhs, and more so even in Lahore, which town owed almost its entire wealth, industry, educational enterprise, and importance to the vast effort the Hindus had been expending for generations in building it up. Sikh enterprise in developing Lahore was second only to the Hindu-the Muslims there being backward and unenterprising, consisting mostly of migratory seasonal labourers or petty hawkers."

"“In short, Lahore is the city of the dead and a complete picture of hell. Those in charge of this hell are so perfect in their jobs and carry out the various items of their jobs with efficiency which is unprecedented.”"

"I loved Lahore. By the time I was at secondary school we had moved from Race Course Road to our own apartments in a large block which my paternal grandfather had built for his five children. These were on Nicholson Road, but very close to the tiny streets and shops of Qila Gujyar Singh, an old Sikh-dominated locality, constructed around a small Sikh fortress. The street names were unchanged. Not that I ever asked myself what had happened to all the Sikhs. My early childhood was dominated by kite-flying and playing cricket with street urchins. It wasn't till much later that I even discovered that Basant, the festival of kites, when the Lahore sky is filled with different colours and shapes as old rivals seek to tangle with and cut down each other's kites, was the millennium-old product of Hindu mythology."

"Mahatma Gandhi. Collected Works 89.11. also in Tribune: 8-8-47. "Mahatma Gandhi advised Congressmen who met him at the residence of Mrs. Rameshwari Nehru at Lahore on 6-8-47 that they should die with dying Lahore." quoted in Talib, S. G. S. (1950). Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab, 1947. Amritshar: Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee."