No one in the whole city ate anything on this night; no one slept a wink. The whole town was ringing with the yells of the attacking Muslims and the … - Gurbachan Singh Talib

Left to themselves, Hindus and Sikhs, although they reeled under the first unexpected blow in the first and second weeks of March, yet they would have rallied and retaliated, for the Sikh has never taken beating for long. But the Sikhs and Hindus were helpless against police and official backing of the Muslims and for the moment could at best defend themselves in a place like Amritsar where they were not heavily outnumbered by Muslims. In other places, where they were outnumbered, the Muslims rained destruction on them-month after month. Such retaliation as came, and as has been hinted at by Chief Secretary Akhtar Hussain in his report quoted above, came towards August, when with the nearness of partition the stranglehold of Muslim police and officials began to loosen on the Eastern districts. But just then this stranglehold was complete from Lahore westwards, and from there it became total mass murder and driving out of Hindus and Sikhs, with looting and abduction on a scale horrible to contemplate. (71)

Preparations were made by the Muslim League for attack on the minorities in every case a good time before the actual occurrence. Arms had been collected and distributed..... The attacks were simultaneous, widespread and in places so open and so sure of non-interference by the authorities that the assailants collected and marched with drums beating, shouting Muslim League slogans, and even making military formations. There was nothing secret about these attacks, as the police were already on the side of the attackers.

During the night, the Hindu and Sikh quarters got hell. Parties of Muslims would go about shouting Pakistan and Islamic slogans, setting fire to Hindu and Sikh houses... Hindus and Sikhs trying to escape from flames were lynched by the mob. A large part of Amritsar was reduced to cinders and rubble in the fires of this night and the one following it. If one stood on the top of a high building in the night, red flames could be seen rising high, spread over large areas, lending a terrible and awful glow to the darkness of the night.