History of Takht Pari

The attack came swiftly and over a vast area in the Rawalpindi Division, in which as has been shown in the table given before, the Muslim population in every district is over 80% and in some is well above 90%.  In

On the 5th March, 1947 on hearing of the Ailing on the Hindu and Sikh students of Lahore, the Hindu-Sikh students of Rawalpindi took out a procession protesting against the Muslim attempt at the formation of a communal (Muslim League) Ministry in the Punjab, and the police firing on the non-violent procession of Hindu and Sikh students.  This procession was attacked by the Muslim Leaguers.  There was a free fight in which the Muslims got the worst of it.  Then a huge Muslim mob from the countryside, incited for attack on Hindu and Sikhs by the Pir of Golra, a Muslim religious head and a leader of this area, fell upon the town.  But the Hindus and Sikhs fought them from their mohallas in trenches, and the Muslims again lost in this battle.  The suburbs of Rawalpindi, however, were burnt and sacked, as resistance in them could not be effective.  Nine Hindus and Sikhs were murdered treacherously by Muslims in Lal Kurti Mohalla, after being decoyed into entering the Muslim Zone for peace negotiations.  This was not a solitary instance of such murder done by treachery, as similar things occurred in other places too, both in March and in the post partition period. 

In the rural areas of Rawalpindi, however, it was a case of mass attack by Muslims, and a general massacre of Hindus and Sikhs.  That this description is not an exaggeration or an attempt at painting a lurid picture, is fully borne out by the tables of incidents attached to this booklet in the form of Appendices.  The Muslims many hundreds of times made up in the rural areas the set-back they had received in Rawalpindi town itself.  Here, on a scale much larger than Takht Pari. in an area many times more extensive, and involving a population many times that of Takht Pari  and Tipperah, the Muslim League, anxious now to convert the Punjab into a Muslim League-governed Province, carried fire and sword into all areas of the Rawalpindi Division.  Here was the answer to the query made by a British newspaper about the aims of Jinnah: ?Does he want to plunge his country into a religious war?? And the answer most emphatically was, ?Yes?.  It was to be a religio-political-war, in which the Punjab was to be made safe at all costs for a Muslim League Government, which should receive power, in June, 1948 from the British Government. 

The attack in Rawalpindi villages began on the 7th March, 1947, and continued non-stop or weeks together, in village after village, wherever any Hindus and Sikhs were to be found.  When one sub-area was rid of its Hindu and Sikh inhabitants then the war on Hindus and Sikhs spread to another area, and so on, till by the end of March, the surviving Hindu and Sikh populations of Rawalpindi, Campbellpur and Jhelum Districts had all been transferred in a destitute state into refugee camps, which were established all over the Punjab, the Sikh states and even the U.P. In the larger towns of this areas there were still Hindus and Sikhs, but they were living in a state of seige, and could not stir out of their homes, much less travel or otherwise move about.

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.

The invaders marched on to their attacks fearlessly and openly, with drums beating and with a large display of firearms, sometimes even modem automatic weapons.  In the newspapers of the period appeared photographs taken of these marching hordes with plenty of rifles carried on the shoulders of the assailants.  It is strange, however, that the valiant fliers in these planes were content only with photographing these invaders and did precious little to fire on them, and thus save the lives of the thousands of helpless men, women and children on whom these invaders loosed hell.
 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.  Takht Pari 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. 

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.

A report on 23 villages of the Attock district reveals that in these villages a total of 610 Hindus and Sikhs were killed within about ten days from March 7, 1947.  In these same villages 1656 Hindu and Sikh houses, including a number of Gurdwaras were burnt and destroyed; 1361 Hindu and Sikh houses were looted of all their property; 1471 Hindus arid Sikhs, both men arid women, were forcibly converted to Islam, and about 100 women and children were abducted. 

In the village of Takht Pari in Rawalpindi district not a single Sikh survived from its total population of one and a half thousands. 70 women were abducted.  The burning and looting of this prosperous village, where such carnage took place, can only be imagined.

In the village of Takht Pari in Rawalpindi District more than 100 Sikhs were killed, and these included women and children. 15 were forcibly converted to Islam.  All houses were looted.

In Chaklala and Rata Amral, Suburbs of Rawalpindi, Sikhs were attacked on March 8, 1947.  The residents held out for a day and a night, but finding the odds against them overwhelming, they surrendered.  A large number were killed, while others were forcibly converted, and shaved and circumcised in public.

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 Bhagpur the entire Sikh population was wiped out.  Women and children were not spared.  The Gurdwara was burnt.

In Bewal, 400 Hindus and Sikhs who had taken shelter in a Gurdwara were burnt alive by the Gurdwara being set on fire.

In Thamali Khari, 400 Sikhs were killed, and one Gurdwara and one school building were burnt to cinders.  Only 20 out of its population survived.

In the village of Takht Pari about two dozen Sikhs were killed and some women immolated themselves to escape dishonour at the hands of the invading Muslims. 40 Sikhs were forcibly converted.  The Gurdwara was looted and burnt.

In the village of Mughal 141 Sikhs were killed, and only about a dozen survived out of its population.  The Gurdwara was burnt.

In Takht Pari, 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. (See a fuller account of this happening in Appendix).

In the village of Sayad, well-known for its educational and philanthropic effort, about 30 Sikhs were killed.  Some were forcibly converted.  The Gurdwara of the place was burnt.

In the village of Takht Pari. 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.

The village of Gorsian in Gujarkhan Tehsil was attacked by a mob of 600, who had been persuaded by the Muslim League Mullas that it is a holy deed to kill Hindus and Sikhs.  Several Sikhs were killed in this village, and large-scale looting occurred.

In most cases in these villages a stop was put to the depredations of the Muslim mobs only by the somewhat belated arrival of the military.

In Mandra the attack came on March 9. There was large-scale looting and burning of houses and shops of Hindus and Sikhs. 200 Sikhs were killed; 40 others were missing, and were probably killed while fleeing for life.  The Gurdwara and School were burnt.

In Kahuta, on March 8, 60 Sikhs were killed and Sikh and Hindu houses were extensively looted. 500 women were abducted from this village.  The Gurdwara was burnt.

Burning of Gurdwaras and Schools, wherever situated appears to have been a settled part of the plan of these predatory mobs, bent upon exterminating and failing that, humiliating Sikhs and Hindus.

In Sukho, where stiff resistance was put up by Sikhs one girls? school and one Gurdwara were burnt.  In Daultala too, very stiff resistance was put up by Sikhs.

In Tainch and Harnali about two dozen Sikhs were killed and brutalities committed in the latter place.  About 30 women were abducted from these places and the Gurdwaras were burnt.  In Harial about 20 Sikhs were killed and 40 were abducted.  The Gurdwara was burnt.

This last is Master Tara Singh?s home place.  Masterji?s house were razed to the ground with sadistic vengeance, the site struck with shoes and ploughed over.

In Bamali, on March 8, about 80 Sikhs were killed and more than 105 were abducted.  Some Sikhs in this village killed their womenfolk to save them from certain dishonour at the hands of the Muslim invaders.  In Banda 20 were killed, including women and children.  The Gurdwara here too was burnt.

In Machhian, on March 11, 1947, 200 Sikhs were killed which number was all the males in the village.  The women and children were all abducted and were later rescued by the military.  The Gurdwara was burnt.

Narali was attacked by a mob of 15,000 on March 12.  The Hindus and Sikhs took shelter inside the Gurdwara, from where they put up stiff resistance.  Several Hindus and Sikhs were killed, and large scale looting of houses of Hindus and Sikhs occurred.

Murree, a very popular hill station near Rawalpindi was attacked on the 9th March, 1947 and about 150 bunglows belonging to Hindus and Sikhs were looted and then burnt.

At Nara, in the tehsil of Kahuta, Sikh women and children were burnt alive, and the women were tortured in ways most devilishly ingenious and sadistic, which it is not possible for any decent human being to describe.

Such barbarities and widespread murderous attacks occurred simultaneously and on the same scale in districts in the neighbourhood of Rawalpindi, such as Campbellpur, Jhelum and Sargodha.  As has been pointed out, all these districts were overwhelmingly Muslim in population.  Similar things occurred in the District of Gujrat, bordering on Jhelum.

In the village of Sarkal Kaser in Jhelum district, on and after March 7, 43 Hindus and Sikhs were killed, the survivors were forcibly converted and all Hindu and Sikh houses were burnt.  Prominent among other villages burnt and looted, with their Hindu and Sikh inhabitants killed in large numbers or forcibly converted and driven as destitutes from their homes are: Darwal, Narang, Chak Sewak, Bhagwal, Athwal, Tahar, Sahota, Mangwal, Thanel Fatuhi, Rupwal, Ranjha, Dhanogi, Ghugg etc.  In the last named, as many as 128 Sikhs were killed and 40 women were abducted.  Looting and arson in Hindu-Sikh houses occurred on a large scale.  In Jia Bagha 18 Sikhs were killed and 52 were forcibly converted. 66 Sikhs? houses were burnt.

Dhudial is a large village in Jhelum district, with several gurdwaras, a High School and a bank.  It was attacked on March 12. The first attack was resisted by the Sikhs, who were a well organised and substantial community.  The second attack, made on the evening of March 13, was much more severe.  Large scale arson and looting of Sikh houses occurred.  About a dozen Sikhs were killed.  Besides three-fourth of the houses in the village, 4 Gurdwaras, the Iran-Hind Bank and the Khalsa High School were burnt.  Only the arrival of the military on the scene stopped further destruction. 14 other villages in the neighbourhood of Dhudial were looted with murder and arson.  Altogether the Chakwal Tehsil of Jhelum District was over-run.

On March 7, the Frontier Mail was stopped by a Muslim mob at Taxila Railway Station, in Rawalpindi district.  Hindu and Sikh passengers, especially the latter, were pulled out and 22 dead bodies were left on the platform.

About the same time, be it noted, another Muslim mob killed Hindu and Sikh passengers in a train while it was held up outside Sharifpura, a suburb of Amritsar.  Train hold-ups and killing of Hindu and Sikh passengers was a regular feature of the Muslim League plan of action, as various incidents from March, right up till January, 1948 show.

Cambellpur witnessed atrocities on Hindus and Sikhs, even much worse and on a larger scale.  In Rajar, in Tehsil Fatehjung of the Cambellpur district on March 10, the Muslim mob which attacked was armed with rifles.  In this attack 300 Sikhs were killed and 3 Gurdwaras were burnt and the Sikh Scripture was desecrated.  In this place, 116 Sikhs including women and children there coasted alive inside a Gurdwara. 95 women were abducted and forcibly married to Muslims.  All Sikh houses were burnt and looted.

In the villages Pand and Tali Pandi in this District on March 9, Sikh houses were looted and burnt on a large scale.  An ultimatum was given to Sikhs to embrace Islam and a large number were forcibly converted.  Such of the Sikhs as did not get converted, were brutally done to death, and these included old women and children.  Some were also burnt alive.  In the village of Jhan, the entire Hindu and Sikh population was wiped out.  In Parial, 150 Hindus and Sikhs out of its total population of 160 were burnt alive while they were taking shelter in the Gurdwara.  In the villages of Chakri and Dheri, Sikhs fought against overwhelming numbers and many were killed.

In Jand, Kanat and Basal, in Campbellpur district there was large-scale arson and heavy casualties among Hindus and Sikhs.  Numerous piteous appeals were sent by the panic-stricken inhabitants to the authorities, but seldom did such appeals help in saving those who made them.  Appeals from beleaguered Sikhs bespeaking the last extremity of despair and expressing any hope of preservation only from God, the Preserver of all, were received from these various areas in the office of the Shromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee at Amritsar, which however, was utterly helpless in this situation in which only a strong Government, determined to stop lawlessness ruthlessly could be of any help.

In Cambellpur lawlessness was of an especially serious nature.  In the village of Dheri, on March 8, the attack was made by a large mob which advanced with drums beating.  A very large number of Sikhs, among whom were women and children, were killed.  Such dastardliness which spared neither sex nor age was a regular feature of this Muslim League campaign of extermination of Sikhs and Hindus.  Various kinds of brutalities were committed.  Hindus and Sikhs who were converted, were forced to swallow beef.

Everywhere in Campbellpur District, there appears to have been no law or Government in these days.  The Muslim police abetted and aided the assailants of Hindus and Sikhs.  The Muslim mobs everywhere advanced with drums beating and with the Muslim League flag flying.  Raping of women, forcible conversions, torturing of men and women were freely indulged in besides burning and looting. Gurdwaras were burnt and desecrated.  In Chauntra all Sikhs were forcibly converted, and their womenfolk given over to Muslims.  Later a plot was hatched by Muslims to kill all these Hindus and Sikhs, notwithstanding their recent conversion.  This plot got somehow known to the intended victims, and they managed to get military aid sometime before they could be done to death.

On March 12, there was a two-hour battle between the Muslim rioters on the one hand and police and military on the other at Jand in Tehsil Pindigheb in Campbellpur district.

On the 12th March, a mob of 10,000 Muslims advanced upon Mianwali.  It was only the tact and firmness of the district authorities which averted the fate of the neighbouring areas befalling the Hindus and Sikhs of this town.

On March 11, the town of Tandlianwala, in Lyallpore district and an important trading centre, was attacked by a huge Muslim mob, bent upon loot, arson and the murder of Hindus and Sikhs.  Here again it was the courage displayed by Hindus and Sikhs and the firmness of the authorities which saved this town.  So widespread over the Punjab was this Muslim League campaign of beating the minorities into submission.

On March 9, in the words of The Civil bind Military Gazette report ?an armed mob (of Muslims) from rural areas raided Hazro Bazar, 12 miles from Cambellpur and committed arson and loot on a large scale.  Six persons were killed and two injured.? The number of casualties is a gross understatement, as all such estimates given in official and quasi-official reports in those days were later proved to be.

In Khusab (Sargodha district) on March 14, Hindu shops, houses and temples were looted and burned.  There was huge loss of property.  A similar situation was developing in Sargodha, Bhera and Bhalwal.

A remote village, Chajian in Hazara district, where attacks on Hindus and Sikhs were made in December, 1946 and January 1947, was attacked on March 15.  Hindus and Sikhs had to be evacuated to places of safety.  In Peshawar Hindus and Sikhs were beleagured.  Muzaffargarh, a district in Multan Division, and Montgomery, in Lahore Division, both Muslim majority districts, showed signs in these days of attacks on Hindus and Sikhs brewing.

It was significant that during this period there had been no disturbance on the part of Hindus and Sikhs in any of the non-Muslim majority districts.  In Jullundur and Ludhiana towns trouble was made by Muslims, who were in a majority of 70% in each of these towns-Sikhs were in. a majority in the rural areas of Ludhiana District, and were a powerful factor in both rural Jullundur and Ferozepore.  Yet no reports were received of any disturbances from these areas.

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.

But the story of the terrible carnage wrought by the Muslim League campaign of conquest of the minorities is not yet even half told.  The known number of casualties in Rawalpindi Division alone is about 7,000 killed.  The number of those injured must be considerably higher.  Not less than between four and five thousand women were abducted or dishonoured.  Houses and shops burnt were thousands, while hundreds of Gurdwaras, Hindu temples and schools were burned or desecrated.  Expressing his reaction to what he saw in Rawalpindi Division in these days, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, then Vice-President of the Interim Government of India said that the deeds committed in -the Rawalpindi district would shame even beasts.  J. A. Scott, Deputy Inspector-General of Police in the Rawalpindi range, in a statement to the Press, declared:

?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.?

All these atrocities on Hindus and Sikhs brought no condemnation whatever from the Muslim League leaders.  They either kept silent about them, or continued to trot out imaginary atrocities on Muslims.  This not only encouraged the Muslim goondas, but gave them the confidence that they could go on safely with the blessings of the League leaders.  Defence Leagues of Muslim lawyers and others were set up to rescue from the clutches of the law murderers and beasts in human shape who had perpetrated unspeakable atrocities on innocent and defenceless human beings.  The Muslim League Press continued to protest against the so-called police excesses in Founding up Muslim bad characters and criminals, against whom action in fact was inadequate and very much belated.  Such action as was taken, came when the military appeared on the scene, and when the Punjab Government decided a little to modify its disastrous policy of making the Punjab Police Department as entirely Muslim preserve.

In Multan attacks of a most destructive nature began on the 5th March, the day on which the Muslim League had decided to unleash its offensive in the Punjab.  In violence, speed and the extent of destruction wrought this Multan campaign was in no way less than its Rawalpindi parallel.  In both areas Hindus and Sikhs were in a small minority, and the Muslim population very inflammable.  In Multan city itself the attack came on the 5th March.  A procession of Hindu and Sikh students which was taken out to demonstrate against the formation of a communal Muslim League ministry in the Punjab, was suddenly and brutally attacked by a Muslim mob, with the help of the Police.  Many of the students who were in this procession were killed.  Then this mob fell upon Hindu and Sikh quarters of the town.  A modest estimate places the number of Hindu and Sikhs killed on the first day at 300 and those injured at 500.  The Muslim mob was led by a Sayad or Muslim holy man, reputedly a descendant of the Prophet of Islam, on a white charger, ?inspiring? the ?faithful? with the destruction of ?Kafirs?.  The police were watching all this and moved not their little finger to stop what could be stopped with firm action in a short space of time.  So virulent had been the Muslim League propaganda, and such the fury into which the League had whipped the Muslim temper, that the mob did not even spare Hindu and Sikh patients in the T.-B. Hospital.  Whole families were done to death, and on the least suspicion of being a non-Muslim a man was killed.  Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew, President of the Punjab Provincial Congress Committee, was on that fateful night a guest in the house of Seth Kalyan Das of Multan.  Dr. Kitchlew?s host and his entire family were butchered and the Doctor escaped death only on his proving to his assailants? satisfaction that he was a Muslim.  Hindu shops were looted and burned on a large scale.  More than a dozen Sikh and Hindu holy places were also burned and desecrated: Eight factories belonging to Hindus were looted and destroyed by fire.  Hindu and Sikh quarters were burned to cinders.

The trouble spread to the countryside of Multan simultaneously.  Police lorries, which moved to and fro ostensibly for the relief of sufferers, were really employed to carry Muslim goondas into the countryside.  In Shujabad Tehsil of Multan, an attack was made on March 7 on the Hindus of village Aliwala.  Large-scale murder of Hindus occurred.  Simultaneously Hindus of the villages of Chhajjushah, Mochipura and Bhojewala were also attacked.  All this was done in village after village after the Muslims had given assurances of safety on the Koran to Hindus.  Hindu women were molested and abducted.  Altogether 50 villages in this tehsil were looted with arson, murder and abduction of women.  Ears, noses and breasts of women were cut off, and they were raped in the presence of their husbands, brothers, fathers and sons.  Such Hindus as approached Muslims with messages of peace were brutally and cynically murdered by these League gangs.  Forcible conversions of Hindus occurred on a large scale.  It is estimated that Hindus were wiped out in this district over an area of about 500 square miles.  Some of the prominent villages in which this destruction occurred are these: Traggar, Matoth, Basti Ahir, Jhakkar, Birkhi, Lashkriwala and Shurewan.

In Lahore, attacks on Hindus and Sikhs started even a day earlier than they did in Multan, that is on the 4th March.  Hindu and Sikh students took out a procession, protesting against the attempt to foist a purely communal, Muslim League Ministry on the Punjab.  The police and officials had watched the progress of the Muslim League agitation of January-February, 1947 for 34 days.  On the whole, as has been pointed out above, this agitation was dealt with in a most ?soft? and even inadequate manner by the police, so that from being an agitation unattended by acts of violence, this agitation soon became violent in nature.  It was at no time, not even at its inception, non-violent in the sense in which the struggles of the Congress had been non-violent, for foul and vituperative abuse, provocative anti-Hindu-and-Sikh slogans, forcing non-Muslims to join the Muslim agitators, etc. had been resorted to by the League agitators as a matter of course.  But all through the police contended themselves with effecting ?temporary? arrests of the League leaders, with now and then tear-gassing the League processions and. such other mild measures.  Only when the police were themselves attacked, did there occur lathi-beating and firing.  All this was because the police and the civil officials had Muslim League sympathi