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)