Tag: Kashmir Invasion

October 22 – The Black Day For Kashmir

By LokMarg Publishing

Pakistan had entered into a Standstill Agreement with the Maharaja of Kashmir on August 12, 1947. On October 22, 1947, Pakistan unilaterally broke the Agreement and launched an invasion to forcibly capture Jammu and Kashmir using tribal raiders. The raiders, as is well known, looted and pillaged the state with a ferocity that shocked the people till the Indian army came to the rescue and decisively threw them back.

However, despite its direct responsibility, Pakistan has managed to spin a narrative that concealed its role in the 1947 invasion calling it a ‘spontaneous’ attack by the tribals in response to the communal killings in J&K. In addition, it has sought to throw doubts about the genuineness of the accession of J&K to India, labelling the entry of Indian troops on October 27, 1947, in Kashmir as illegal. Pakistan has observed this day as a ‘Black Day’ for decades in Pakistan, in Pakistan occupied J&K (POJK), and in the diaspora in order to bolster its narrative.

Unfortunately for Pakistan, there is documentary evidence in terms of eyewitness accounts of the tribal invasion that demolishes its case. One such is of Akbar Khan (later a Maj. General and involved in the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case) whose book ‘Raiders in Kashmir’ leaves no doubt about how Pakistan planned the invasion and was directly involved in it.

Akbar Khan was then Director, Weapons, and Equipment at GHQ. He devised a plan to use a previous government sanction for the issue of 4,000 military rifles to the Punjab Police and have the rifles transferred from the police to the raiders. Likewise, old ammunition was secretly diverted for use in Kashmir. He even devised a plan titled ‘Armed Revolt inside Kashmir’ to strengthen Kashmiris internally and at the same time taking steps to prevent the arrival of armed civilians or military assistance from India into Kashmir, either by road or air.

The plan was discussed, first at a preliminary conference at the Provincial government secretariat in the office of Shaukat Hayat Khan, then a minister in the Punjab government. However, there was also another plan devised by the latter based on using the officers and other ranks of the former Indian National Army (INA). Zaman Kiani was to lead operations across the Punjab border and Khurshid Anwar of the Muslim League guards north of Rawalpindi. Both sectors were under the overall command of Shaukat Hayat Khan.

Later, Akbar Khan attended a meeting chaired by prime minister former Liaquat Ali. Others who attended were Finance Minister Ghulam Mohd., Mian Iftikharuddin, a Muslim League leader, Zaman Kiani, Khurshid Anwar, Shaukat Hayat. According to his book, several army and air force officers as also the Commissioner Rawalpindi were involved.

Another book is of Pakistan occupied Jammu & Kashmir (PoJK) author Mohammad Saeed Asad titled ‘Yaadon Ke Zakhm’ (Wounded Memories). Asad has managed to collect a series of first-hand accounts that graphically reveal the brutalities inflicted by the raiders on the people.

What Saeed’s account emphasizes is the tolerant and peaceful nature of society that existed in Kashmir before the tribal invasion. All the three communities- the majority of Muslims and the minority Hindus and Sikhs – lived in peace and harmony. The friendship between the communities extended to all aspects of social interaction- festivals, marriages, and funerals.

Let alone coming to the aid of their religious brethren, Saeed’s book makes clear that the raiders did not distinguish between Muslims and non-Muslims. Shops and homes of all communities were equally plundered. No home was spared the tribal carnage just because it belonged to a Muslim. In Baramulla, for example, only 3,000 survived out of a population of 14,000. In places, even the holy Quran was desecrated. No village en-route escaped plunder and devastation. Many Muslim women read the kalma and pleaded for their lives but the raiders took no heed. A large number of them were taken back to the Frontier and sold.

A third book is of Humayun Mirza who revealed in ‘From Plassey to Pakistan’ that his father Iskander Mirza (later Governor-General of Pakistan) was tasked by Jinnah to raise a tribal Lashkar in February 1947 to wage a jihad against the British if they did not concede Pakistan. Mirza identified the tribesmen from Waziristan, Tirah, and the Mohmand country for this purpose. He asked for a sum of Rs one crore (or Pounds 750,000 at the then exchange rate) to achieve this objective. Jinnah gave him Rs 20,000 for immediate expenses and told him that the Nawab of Bhopal would provide the rest.

In the event, the British conceded Pakistan and so the plan did not have to be put into action. However, by October 1947, Iskandar Mirza was Defence Secretary and his earlier experience with the tribesmen would have come in use to organize the invasion. The book also reveals that Jinnah was very much in the know about the events in Kashmir.

That is why 22 October matters because for too long has Pakistan got away with a false narrative, hiding its culpability in the tribal invasion. That’s why it is so necessary to sensitize people, especially the youth in Kashmir who may otherwise not be aware of the history of the event. They need to be reminded of the brutalities that Pakistan had subjected their forefathers to and what Pakistan’s real intentions were then and are even today.

Thus, if there is a ‘Black Day’ in Kashmir it has to be October 22 when its history was permanently distorted. This was the day when the princely state became an ‘issue’ and a ‘question’, this was the day when the truth was masked to further the Pakistani agenda, this was the day when Pakistan deliberately destroyed the unity, integrity, and civilizational ethos of Kashmir and this was the day when a deceitful and conniving Pakistan betrayed the people of Kashmir but projected itself as the champion of their rights.

(The author has written three widely acclaimed books on Pakistan and is a Member of the National Security Advisory Board. – ANI)

October 22, 1947: The Raid On Baramulla

By LokMarg

Having planned Operation Gulmarg, Pakistan unleashed its tribal militia on Jammu and Kashmir on October 22, 1947. Overwhelming Muzzafarabad, Domel and Uri, the tribal lashkars led by Pakistan Army personnel reached Baramulla on October 26.

The havoc they wrecked on Baramulla is not very well-known. A despatch by Robert Trumbull of New York Times of November 10 described what happened in Baramulla.

Baramulla had been stripped of its wealth and young women before the tribesmen fled in face of the advancing Indian troops. Surviving residents estimated that 3,000 of their fellow townsmen, including four Europeans and a retired British Army Officer, Colonel Dykes, and his pregnant wife, were slain.

When the raiders rushed into the town on October 26, one party of Mahsud tribesmen scaled the walls of Saint Joseph’s Franciscan Convent compound and stormed its hospital and church. Four nuns, Colonel Dykes and his wife were shot.

The raiders also forced 350 local Hindus into a building, with the intention of burning it down.

Twenty-four hours after the Indian Army entered Baramulla, only 1,000 were left of a normal population of about 14,000.

Max Despott, an Associated Press photographer, described on November 2 that he saw more than 20 villages in flames while flying over a section of Kashmir Valley extending within 20 miles of Srinagar. The villages had been set afire by the invaders who were scouring the valley and moving in the direction of Srinagar.

Sydney Smith of Daily Express of London had stayed in the Baramulla hospital for those fateful 10 days. He too had filed a report on the raiders’ attack on the convent. The raiders had come shooting their way down from the hills on both sides of the town. They climbed over the hospital walls from all sides. The first group burst into a ward firing at the patients.

“A 20-year-old Indian nurse, Philomena, tried to protect a Muslim patient whose baby had just born. She was shot dead first. The patient was next. Mother Superior Aldetrude rushed into the ward, knelt over Philomena and was at once attacked and robbed. The Assistant Mother, Teresalina, saw a tribesman point a rifle at Mother Aldetrude and jumped in front of her.

“A bullet went through Teresalina’s heart. At that moment Colonel Dykes raced from his room to get the Mother Superior out of danger, shouting at the tribesman as he ran. But the Mother Superior fell, and Colonel Dykes collapsed beside her, with a bullet in the stomach. Mrs Dykes ran from her husband’s room to help him.

“She too was shot dead. While this went on, Mr Gee Boretto, an Anglo-Indian, was killed in the garden before nine nuns. The nuns were lined up before a firing squad. We did not find Mrs Dykes until the following day. She had been thrown down a well. Reports had come that the chief of another Evangelical Mission, Major Ronald Davis, a Welshman, and one of his two English women assistants, had also been shot dead. The other assistant was said to have been taken to the hills.”

Abdul Rahman of Baramulla also recorded his observations on the atrocities. The raiders, with all their ferocity, looted the Hindus to begin with, burnt the houses of the Sikhs and killed them. As a result of this arson and loot, the Sikhs and the Hindus fled Baramulla leaving their houses burning, and most of their women raped and kidnapped.

The raiders did not touch the Muslims, to begin with – perhaps they wanted to win their sympathy. After a few days when they found that they were about to be forced out of the Valley, they turned on everybody that came their way.

They started wholesale loot, arson and orgy. They burnt the property of the Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims without any discrimination. They killed children, old men and women, and committed rape on every young woman, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh alike. The raiders also took valuables like silver and gold ornaments, shawls etc. when they left.

According to the Wazir-i-Wazarat of Baramulla, Chaudury Faizullah, the raiders entered in groups of 30 to 40. About 5,000 of them were concentrated in Baramulla at one time. They were mostly tribesmen with a few Punjabi Muslims, all well-armed and led by Pirs, Pakistan Army and Frontier Constabulary officers.

The local Muslim Conference men joined the raiders and acted as guides. From the day the raiders entered Baramulla, they started killing non-Muslims and looting and burning houses of all local inhabitants, irrespective of religion and raping their women. They used to break into houses of local inhabitants in groups of 10 or 12, search the house and carry away valuables, clothes and food. As many as 280 lorries were used to carry away the loot from Baramulla towards Uri.

The raiders left Baramulla on the night of November 7. There was not a single house left that was not looted by the raiders. It was a great relief to the local inhabitants when the Indian Army re-captured Baramulla. The Times of London reported on November 11 that the Baramulla residents seemed delighted to welcome the Indian troops. The despatch also bore testimony to the fact that the convent and hospital were not shot up by the Indian aerial attacks as alleged by Pakistan wireless statements.

(The author is a secretary in the Ministry of Culture, Government of India – ANI)