Hindus and Sikhs realized with a rude shock that the speeches of the Muslim League leaders were merely a smoke-screen to conceal their designs of sec… - Gurbachan Singh Talib

Muslim soldiers on duty invariably acted as the Muslim police had so far done. They connived at Muslim mobs setting fire to the city and murdering Hindus and Sikhs, while they were very prompt to arrest any Hindu or Sikh found in any public place, any pretext serving for such action.

Therefore, the Hindus and Sikhs, the minorities in the new Muslim homeland, were not to be suffered to stay there. This “minorityism”, the name for Hindus and Sikhs, was “the major enemy of the Milltat,” as Rehmat Ali, one of the early League leaders and intellectuals and coiner of the word Pakistan, said.

A peace meeting had to be called in Gujranwala on the 11th July at which Muslim League leaders including Mian Iftikharuddin and the Khan of Mamdot made very glib speeches about the virtue of neighbourliness and communal harmony. But the Muslim audiences knew very well that all Muslim League leaders’ peace appeals, from Mr. Jinnah downwards were meant only to do a formality, to fool the Western world and to lull Hindus and Sikhs into a false sense of security. Behind the scenes these very speech-makers were planning riots and organising and financing arson and murder.