In other districts of the present province of West Punjab (Pakistan) and in these above-mentioned districts, immediately before and after August, 194… - Gurbachan Singh Talib

21st June dawned terrible and grim in Lahore, even more than the two previous days. On this day a bus was stopped by Muslim goondas outside Mochi Gate, a purely Muslim locality. Hindu and Sikh passengers were pulled out, the Muslims being asked to stand in a separate line. The Muslim goondas on such occasions used the term ‘chhatra’ (a sheep) or ‘suer’ (pig) for the victims, and asked the drivers if they happened to be Muslims, to surrender their prey to them. 10 of these unhappy passengers were stabbed to death and left dead on the Circular Road. On this day the city, of Lahore, both walled and new, saw altogether 46 fires raging in it. In the walled city alone, a thickly populated area, concentrating a population of 3 lakhs in a square mile or so, 20 fires were burning in the Hindu and Sikh localities. Gurdwara Baoli Sahib inside Dabbi Bazar in the walled city was attempted to be burned, but was saved by the arrival of a military patrol. On the 22nd June, the campaign of arson took a still more widespread and ‘all-out’ form. On this day the town had as many as 69 fires burning in its different localities. Shahalmi Gate, the biggest and busiest trading centre of Lahore, almost entirely Hindu, was the spot selected for destruction by Muslims this time. (103)

As a corollary to the above, in the period up till August, 1947 there were about a million Hindu and Sikh refugees from the Western districts of the Punjab, from the North-Western Frontier Province, from Baluchistan and the devastated city of Lahore, besides Amritsar, who had to be looked after in refugee camps by the Punjab Government, by the Sikh States of the Punjab and by bodies like the Hindu Mahasabha and the Shromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. There were very few Muslim refugees anywhere in this period. Such few as there were, came mainly from Amritsar, where alone up till August, the Hindus and Sikhs had been able to put up anything like a fight for life against Muslim aggression. (76-77)

The Hindu and Sikh students of Lahore took out a big procession to demonstrate their resolve not to tolerate a Muslim League Ministry. This perfectly non-violent procession was fired on by the Muslim Police, which had stood hooliganism and law-breaking from Muslim mobs for over a month in the Province.