Top 15 Gurbachan Singh Talib Quotes

The evidence of the associates of the Khan (Iftikhar Hussain Khan Mamdot) in the Punjab Muslim League revealed that funds had been spent on the purchase of arms, in 1946 and 1947, for attack on non-Muslims in the Punjab. (p. 445)

A British Officer of the M. E. O. of West Punjab reported (September, 1947) that at a place near Sheikhupura he was called to rescue a Hindu girl, who had been carried away by Muslim National Guards. He found the girl in a hut with 4 of her captors, who had raped and cut off her breasts and were now frying them. He shot the lot.

“Girls abducted from Mirpur side are sold in Jhelum city at Rs. 10 or 20 each. The local police refuses to interfere on the ground that the girls were not removed from the Punjab and also they express their helplessness because of the attitude of the armed Pathans possessing these girls. I am bringing this to the notice of the West Punjab Government but I am afraid nothing would come out of it and in our helplessness all these girls shall have to stand hardships for all their lives and suffer misery.” According to the information received most of the girls abducted from Jammu and Kashmir States and some of the girls abducted from Gujranwala, Jhelum, Mianwali, Jhang and Dera Ghazi Khan districts are taken to the North-west Frontier Province and from there to the tribal territory. At Mansera and some other places (North-West Frontier) there are regular camps where Hindu girls are being sold.

“On 4-10-47, a small caravan of about fifteen non-Muslims tried to cross the bridge Ravi from Pakistan to this side. They were entrapped by the Muslim Military picket on the other side of the bridge. That caravan included four women. The male members of the caravan were murdered during the night. Our Military picket on this side of the bridge heard shrieks and cries of the victims. The Gurkha Jamadar in charge of the picket saw the women with Military (Muslim). They kept those women in their tents during the night and the military picket on our side heard their shrieks too during the night as if they were being raped. Later on those women never crossed the bridge on this side.

Here follow unprintable details of rape and brutality to these helpless women at the bands of Pakistan Military and Muslim goondas.

The train stopped at Kamoke railway station for the whole of the night. At about 8 a.m. on the 8th of Asuj Wednesday the Police came to the railway station and started searching the train... 97 guns and rifles were taken away... When everybody had got into the train and as the engine was whistling to indicate that the train was going to start, a huge crowd of Muslims came from the side of the Mandi and factories. They were armed with rifles, chhuras, axes, barchas and other lethal weapons. They were shouting “Ya Ali” and came running. They entered the compartments of the train and started butchering male passengers. The police force including the Sub-Inspector and Assistant Sub-Inspector were present at the platform and they also joined in shooting down the passengers who tried to come out of the train... Those of the passengers who tried to run towards the platform out of the compartments were shot dead by the police and the military and those who went out of the compartments towards the maidan were butchered by the Muslim mob.... The women-folk were not butchered, but taken out and sorted. The elderly women were later butchered while the younger ones were distributed... The children were also similarly murdered. All the valuables on the persons of the women were removed and taken away by the mob...
During these visits I also saw a large number of Hindu women in the houses of the Muslim inhabitants of Kamoke. All of them complained that they were being very badly used by their abductors.

It is obvious from the foregoing that while the Muslim League had its ‘plan’ of elimination of minorities, the Sikhs and Hindus retaliated in the face of the inhuman attacks on their coreligionists. To talk of a ‘plan’ with regard either to the Sikhs or Hindus is fantastic; more probably deliberate falsehood.

The Sikhs have been made the scapegoats for blame not only by Muslims, but also by ill-informed Hindus and other non-Muslims. The terrible sufferings of the Sikhs were totally lost sight of, as well as the constant provocation offered to them, the massacres, loot, arson, destruction of sacred places, and above all, dishonouring of their women. Only the excesses committed by Sikhs in retaliation were presented and magnified manyfold. And hence a totally false and distorted picture was presented in which the Sikh was presented as the villain of the piece. It even became fashionable in India to profess sympathy in and out of season for all kinds of Muslims, and to profess an equal abhorrence for Sikhs.

Pakistan propaganda has sought to make the world believe that the happenings of 1947 in the Punjab were the result of what it calls ‘Some specific Plan’ on the part of Sikhs. -What this ‘Plan’ exactly was, what were the specific objectives which it set out to achieve is not made exactly clear, but nevertheless it is asserted that a Sikh ‘Plan’ existed to destroy Muslim life. Barefaced lying has been known to go quite far in the affairs of the world but such a high degree of it as has manifested itself in Pakistan propaganda against Sikhs in particular and against India in general, is a rare treat and is hard to beat. It must be a very stupid world which Pakistan expected would swallow the stuff put forth by its propagandists.

Sikh history and the dearest association of the Sikhs are enshrined in these places. To think that Sikhs and Hindus would leave en masse all that has been mentioned above, if it had been possible for them to retain these, is fantastic nonsense, worthy only of the mendacions propagandists of Pakistan.

Tribune: 8-8-47. Mahatma Gandhi advised Congressmen who met him at the residence of Mrs. Rameshwari Nehru at Lahore on 6-8-47 that they should die with dying Lahore.

In reality, such fantastic things are being said by Pakistan only to cover up their own conspiracy and crimes against Hindus and Sikhs, whom they persecuted, harassed and with murder, rape, arson and loot drove out of Pakistan. Here are a few grounds for believing that Sikhs and Hindus left Pakistan under very great duress, and that they were extremely unhappy to do so, as this coming away lost to them all that was precious to them in the material and spiritual way.

Muslim League leaders had long advocated exchange of population between Muslim and non-Muslim India. All those who advocated the establishment of a Muslim State also advocated as its necessary corollary the exchange of population... Though, it may be said here that this exchange was no real exchange-it was all the driving out of non-Muslims from Muslim majority zones, while Muslims, except for the isolated case of Bihar, where the Hindu riots were ruthlessly suppressed by the Congress Hindu Government and Pt. Nehru, everywhere were safe. (216)

Pakistan propagandists, in order to hide the shameful crimes of the Muslim League leaders, a part of whose programme it was to carve out a purely Muslim State and to eliminate religious minorities from it, have put forth a mischievous piece of propaganda that Sikhs (and by implication Hindus as well) left Pakistan by a design. Mat this ‘Design’ could have been passes ordinary human comprehension.

All these happenings occurred at a time when in India, Mahatma Gandhi undertook his last fast to get better treatment for the Indian Muslims. That was the response in Pakistan to the Mahatma's gesture, and the faithfully carrying out of the Mahatma's instructions by Hindus and Sikhs. Exactly when Delhi was being made safe for Muslims, in Karachi 800 Sikhs were massacred, and all Hindus looted and despoiled, had to move into refugee camps.