THE DOOMSDAY OF HINDUS AND SIKHS-

AUGUST 14TH 1947

Dr. Shiv Shakti

August 14 deserves to be recorded as a day of

immense historical significance in the recent past when Pakistan was born and India was partitioned in 1947.

It is an irony that people tend to forget most of the tragedies that have befallen Indian civilization.

Although, India now represents one of the oldest living civilization along with China, formation of Pakistan symbolizes its receding boundaries and threatened future.

The gory incidents of riots, arsons, loot and massacres finally which got culminated into partition of India again saw more and more violence and killings as its aftermath. In the bloodbath that occurred in the course of these events more than five million innocent people are estimated to have been killed.

  The gory chapters of partition were written by the pre-planned attacks by the Muslim League backed by Muslim masses, Police and local administration in collusion with the state governments in the Muslim dominated provinces aiming at ethnically cleansing these provinces of non-Muslim population.

Disturbances in Lahore started as soon as the 3rd June plan was announced forcing Hindus and Sikhs to migrate. Despite the assurances of peace given by the Muslim League violence continued and on 10th July Lahore Loco Workshop was attacked killing seven Hindus and Sikhs. The Hindus and Sikhs who were not willing to leave their land of ancestors were butchered to death. 

Muslim anti -social elements along with Muslim National Guards and Baluch Military participated in the

killings. Gurudwaras were attacked and burned along with the devotees inside (as in the case of Chhevi Padshahi Gurudwara). There is documented evidence of daily murder, loot and arsons in which non-Muslims were targeted. The trains carrying the fleeing people out were also repeatedly attacked and thousands of Hindus and Sikhs were massacred with the railway tracks heaped with corpses.

The organised movements of the Muslim mobs along with Muslim League leaders and police even reached countryside indulging in killing, pillaging, arsoning, raping and abducting non-Muslim women, and brutal cleansing of   the villages of the Hindu and Sikh population.

The gruesome incidents in the villages of Wanteo, Killa Gunjan, Manihala Jamsher Kalan, Talwandi, Bhuchoke, Janga Araian, Pajjian, Gohawa, Sangran, Ganje Sandh, Raja Jang, Halloke, Chhappa , Narwar, Padhana etc. exposed the sinister designs of the Muslim League wherein it was aimed to realize their much touted aim that ‘koi Sikh rehne na pae Maghribi Punjab men' (Let no Sikh be allowed to remain in the Western Punjab). The angst of the Muslim marauders against the Sikhs was particularly severe, massively brutal, because they considered the Sikhs as their traditional enemies and even the sword arm of the Hindus.

Similar patterns of pre-planned and organised attacks were witnessed in other districts of Punjab. The districts of Amritsar, Shiekhupura, Lyallpur, Gujranwala, Montgomery, Sialkot, Mianwali, Jhang, Jhelum, Multan and Muzaffargarh, Gujrat, Sargodha etc. saw the Muslim mobs descending on the Hindu-Sikh population well armed and well prepared catching them unaware of the things to come. A large number of brutal massacres were organized by the Muslim League leadership which often led the mobs aided the police and law and order machinery killing large number of non-Muslims indiscriminately. A brief account of some of the most horrible massacres is given below:

The Kamoke Massacre –

A train carrying around five thousand Hindus including around 800 women was attacked near Kamoke railway station in the beginning of September 1947. The massacre was planned was evident from the fact that before the Muslim mob attacked the train, the Hindus who had around 97 licensed guns and rifles in their possession were disarmed on the station by the local

police during a search operation. All the men were butchered to death and elderly women and children were mercilessly killed while the younger women were distributed among the attackers as war booty.

•        The Parachinar Massacres - On 23rd January 1948, the refugee camp at Parachinar was attacked and 500 Hindus and Sikhs were brutally killed.

•        Massacre at Gujarat - On 11th January 1948, a train carrying around 2,500 to 3,000 refugees reached Gujrat where it was waiting for the arrival of new engine. It was escorted by around 60 military personnel. The train was attacked by Pathans who were aided by Pakistan Military. It was estimated that around 1,600 refugees along with the entire escort party excepting one were brutally killed and nearly 400 women were abducted.

•        The Sheikhupura Massacre - One of the most horrible massacres was organized in Sheikhupura on 26th August 1947 when curfew was imposed on the town. Pakistan Military led by the magistrate Qazi Ahmad Shafi started from one end to the other killing non-Muslims men, women and children and abducting young girls. Another group that followed looted the properties and set houses in fire.

Bren guns and Sten guns were used in killing non-Muslim men by lining them. By 4 pm in the morning around 10,000 Hindus and Sikhs were killed and truckloads of women were taken away. Many Sikh and

Hindu girls immolated themselves to escape dishonour. Two wells in Namdhari Gurudwara were filled with the bodies of Sikh girls who killed themselves to save their honour.

•        The Sharaqpur Massacre - Local Muslim League leadership led by the local President Fazil Ilahi Kahli along with police constables armed with guns, rifles and sten guns suddenly started killing non-Muslims on 27th August 1947 . Out of a population of 1000 , only 71 non-Muslims survived and 15 girls were abducted. The property of Sikhs and Hindus were looted.

•        The Muzaffarabad Massacre - In district Muzaffarabad, non-mUslims in Kotli village were attacked and rounded up in October 1947 by the Pathans and Afridis armed with automatic weapons. The males were taken to the bank of a river and the Nawab of Boiwala was asked to initiate the killings by firing the first shot. A brutal massacre took place as soon as the Nawab obliged with his first shot and an estimated 1000 Hindus and Sikhs were mercilessly butchered.

In Sind massive migrations were witnessed in the course of Muslim League sponsored violence and terrorization tactics. The Hindus who formed 30% of the total population of Sind could not offer ample resistance and had to succumb to the Police-Muslim League- Muslim mob nexus.

It was estimated that out of their total population of fourteen lakh, twelve lakh Hindus were forced to flee leaving their properties behind. All the shrines and Gurudwaras were looted, desecrated and occupied by the Muslim mobs. In Karachi where a group of Sikhs descended from Shikarpur due to communal disturbances there and took refuge in a Gurudwara near Ratan Talao, a mob of nearly 8,000 Muslims surrounded the Gurudwara and brutally massacred al the refugees. Around 800 Sikhs were reportedly killed in the massacre.

East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) which witnessed horrible massacres in Noakhali and Tipperah in October 1946, after the call for Direct Action, again saw the gory spectacle of massacres and butchery in 1950. In all the incidents of massacres, loot, arson and rape the police, paramilitary ansars, a government controlled Muslim militia and mobs actively participated. The attacks started on February 7, 1950 with the staffs of East Bengal Secretariat organizing a procession against the minorities. A well known Hindu leader representing members of the Scheduled Castes, D.N. Mandal, mesmerised by the secular creed decided to stay

behind in East Bengal on being offered a ministerial position.

In East Pakistan he was the only Hindu cabinet minister. But within two years he became a helpless spectator to repetitive pogroms against the Hindu minority, especially the Namsudras. After witnessing the barbaric killings during Dacca riots of February, 1950, in which nearly ten thousands were killed and plight of Scheduled Caste Hindus of  Mirpur and Tejgaon, two ravaged suburbs of Dacca, and atrocities committed in Narayanganj, Chittagong and Barisal he realized that there was a systematic plan to kill and convert the Hindus.

He also took notice of the fact that in West Pakistan nearly one lakh members of Scheduled Castes were forcibly converted to Islam on pain of death and dishonour.

Dozens of Scheduled Caste girls had been abducted and nearly 363 Hindu temples and Gurdwaras had been seized by Muslims and transformed into cobbler's shops, slaughter-houses and hotels. In sheer disgust D.N. Mandal resigned from his ministerial post in East Pakistan's cabinet. Later on he migrated to India. His resignation letter made public after he migrated to India gives a glimpse into the scale of ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Pakistan, especially in the eastern wing of that Islamic State. 

No wonder that during the last 58 years the population of Hindus in Pakistan has now been reduced to less than two percent from more than 24 percent at the time of partition. Similarly in Bangladesh (former East Pakistan) the Hindu population has plummeted from 29 percent to less than 8-9 percent.

Yet no tears were shed for millions of Hindus who were killed or forcibly converted in the two wings of the erstwhile Pakistan. As long as Hindus are not able to grasp the real significance of 14 August 1947 and keep their eyes open such incidents may see repetition in future.

The nation is now witness to similar kinds of tactics and politics in the names of communal reservation and grant of special status to minorities.

In such a situation when politics of minority appeasement is given sacrosanct status by media and intelligentsia of the country, politicians are competing to reap political dividends out of the situation.

Slumbering Hindu community may give another opportunity to the forces continuously conspiring against Indian civilization.

Article Courtesy- Voice of India (VOI.com)