BLOOD, FIRE IN DIVIDED PUNJAB

Northern Advocate, 27 August 1947, Page 5

BLOOD, FIRE IN DIVIDED PUNJAB

(Received 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, August 26. WITH blood and fire the peoples of the divided Punjab are settling the problem which the Boundary Commission left unsolved—separation of Moslems from Sikhs and Hindus, says Reuters Lahore correspondent.

Along the roads of Central Punjab hundreds of thousands of terrified refugees are on the move east and west.

The influx of Moslem refugees into Lahore is estimated at 200.000. A similar number oi Hindus and Sikhs left the city. Half a million Moslems are reported to be drifting by any means possible towards Pakistan out of the devastated areas around Amritsar. The Times Lahore correspondent says that, according to the best neutral sources, no fewer than 10,000 Moslems have been killed in the Amritsar district alone this month. The boundary force is meeting large well-organised bands of Sikhs. In one affray a force attacked a group of 800 and killed 61. BITTER MOSLEM HATRED The correspondent adds that the illconceived and ill-timed Sikh conspiracy is having results its planners did not foresee. The 1,500,000 Sikhs in Pakistan have become targets of bitter Moslem hatred. Moslem mobs stopped a train from Rawalpindi to Lahore today and killed every Sikh they found. Sikhs displayed the same ruthlessness and brutality in Jullundur as in Amritsar.

Out of one Moslem village of 350 people who fought off a Sikh attack for six hours, only 40 survived. Women and children were hacked into small pieces. Women have had their hands cut off while kneeling in an attitude of supplication. WOMEN CARRIED OFF Many of the younger women have been carried off. To date in this district there have been seven reported Moslem attacks on Sikh villages and 100 Sikh attacks on Moslems. The Times correspondent says several senior ex-officers of the Indian National Army, which fought besides the Japanese, haw* played a leading part in forming and arming raiding parties. The local authorities in the Gurdaspur district seized two private aeroplanes which the Moslems have been using to direct ground operations of raiding parties. EVACUATING MINORITIES In New Delhi today the Government of India decided to mobilise a fleet of planes and lorries to rush Hindus and other minorities out of Pakistan (Western) Punjab, if the Pakistan Government grants the necessary facilities for evacuation.

The Government of India would grant Pakistan similar facilities for the evacuation of Moslems from Indian (Eastern) Punjab. The New Delhi District Commissioner announced that it would be impossible to accommodate any further refugees from Punjab. Official sources on the spot say the entire Moslem population of the districts round Amritsar, Jullundur, Ferozepur and Guardaspur—2,soo,oo0— is in an unsettled condition. A APPEAL FOR PEACE Tara Singh, a village schoolmaster, who rose to be one of the Sikhs’ chief leaders, interviewed in Amritsar, said he hoped one day that Sikh rule would return to Punjab. The Sikhs,.he said, felt for Punjab as the Jews felt for Palestine. The present trouble, if not quickly checked, would spread and become extremely difficult to control. Tara Singh’s appeal for peace was dropped from an aircraft and appears to have had a favourable effect round Amritsar, where life is slowly returning, but the appeal was double-edged. “MUST FIGHT TO DEATH” While asking for order Tara Singh also declared that the Sikhs would never accept the boundary award, and must be prepared to fight to the death for their just rights. Tfara Singh spoke with sorrow of the massacres, but, like everyone else, blamed the other side for starting the trouble. A 100 ft statue of Gandhi, modelled on New York’s Statue of Liberty, will be erected on an islet off Bombay as a tribute to Gandhi’s leadership in achieving India’s freedom. MINISTER UNDER FIRE The Joint Defence Council, consisting of members of Pakistan and India, after a meeting today presided over by the Governor-General of. India, Earl Mountbatten, issued a communique stating that the riot situation had improved in Lahore and Amritsar, but remained serious in other districts. The council agreed that the area which the boundary force was covering should be reduced as rapidly as practicable Dy a successive retrocession of the area in which it was no longer essential to have a joint force. Speakers emphasised that the boundary force was not responsible for any aspects of. the civil administration for which it had been criticised. It had given all the assisTance possible to the civil Governments of East Punjab and West Punjab. The Indian Minister of Defence, Sarda*r Baldev 'Singh, who is a Sikh, narrowly escaped death while touring the riot areas in the Amritsar district. East Punjab police mistook his party for communal raiders and opened fire. Sardar Singh and members of his staff threw themselves to the ground as bullets passed overhead.