On this day, August 17th, in 1947, Muslim troops and rioters continued their murderous rampage through the countryside surrounding Lahore, Pakistan.  Following the instructions of the holy, holy Qur’an, they killed the non-Muslims wherever they found them.

Here is a summary of the day’s attack by S. Gurbachan Singh Talib, from “Muslim League Attack On Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab” published in 1947 (h/t Gyan):

Apart from the City of Lahore, over the entire district the same tale of horror and destruction was repeated.  Kasur is an important town on the main line to Delhi which runs from Lahore via Ferozepore.

The countryside of Kasur was predominantly Sikh, though the town itself had a large Muslim majority in the population.  When on the 17th August it became known that Kasur was included in Pakistan, the Muslims fell upon non-Muslims.  The one way of escape for non-Muslims from Pakistan into India was closed with Kasur being disturbed.  There was a large massacre of non-Muslims at the Railway Station.  In the city, mohalla after mohalla of Hindus and Sikhs was attacked, and Hindus and Sikhs houses and business premises were set on fire.  Hundreds of Sikhs and Hindus were killed inside the city and its outskirts in two days.  It was possible for some non-Muslims to escape, as the Indian border of Amritsar district was only a few miles distant on Khem Karan side.  Very few could escape towards Ferozepore, as the bridge on the river Sutlej which was on the way, was held by Muslim troops, who shot dead all non-Muslims who approached it.  Huge looting of non-Muslim property occurred.  Schools, cinema houses, shops, factories, nothing was spared.  Curfew was imposed, but as at other places, it only facilitated the task of Muslim goondas.  The Hindus and Sikhs could not come out of their houses, and got murdered or surrounded in flames.

Raiwind, in the District of Lahore, is an important Railway junction, as it is the crossing-point of two main lines-the Lahore-Ferozepore-Delhi line and the Lahore-Multan-Karachi line.  This place was the point at which trains carrying Hindu-Sikh refugees from Lahore, Montgomery, Multan and Sind used to arrive.  Repeated attacks on trains occurred here.  Survivors state that when they arrived at Raiwind they saw hundreds of corpses of Sikhs lying all along the railway track.  Muslim goondas, police and military seldom let a train pass unattacked if it did not have a strong Hindu-Sikh escort.  Especially was this the case up till the middle of September.  It is estimated that after August 15, at least a dozen trains were attacked at Raiwind and thousands of Hindus and Sikhs killed.  No other Railway Station was the scene of so much carnage.  One such train was attacked on the 4th September, in which 300 Hindus and Sikhs were killed.

In the countryside of Lahore the policy, after the 17th August (Announcement of the Award of the Boundary Commission) was to hound out Sikhs and Hindus from their homes en masse.  In all these attacks on villages, the police or military or both would generally lead the attack.  Little quarter was given to such unfortunate people as got into the clutches of these assailants.  Burning of houses, looting of property, murder of men and abduction of women and children-this oft-reported tale was repeated in these village as well.  Men and women scurried for their lives like rats.  It was with the greatest good fortune that some people managed to escape, sometimes through the help of a personal Muslim friend or through such Indian Military as might have happened to reach the area under attack.

Due to the chaos attendant the Partition of India (between Muslim and non-Muslim), it is difficult to get accurate statistics on the number of deaths that occurred.  Estimates range from 500,000 to 1 million to 3.4 million.  Surely India has been one of the biggest, if not the biggest, victim of jihad-related violence, both during the Partition and in the preceding centuries under the rule of various Islamic Sultanates.  The 9/11 attack on NYC and the 7/7 attack on the London Tube, while horrible, pale in comparison to what India has suffered.

Previous Days in the "Religion of Peace™":

Aug 16: Taliban Bans Bakeries
Aug 9: Pseudo Coup in Mauritania
Aug 8: Fall of Mazar-i Sharif
Aug 7: Gallipoli: Chunuk Bair
Aug 6: Benazir Bhutto Resigns