Bal K. Gupta
“November 25, 1947: Throughout the night, I could hear the incessant firing of machine guns and heavy artillery as the Pakistani army and the Pathanmercenaries began their final assault on Mirpur. They had started the invasion from the west side, and my family and some of my relatives lived on the east side. For the entire night, twelve members of my great-grandfather Lalman Shah’s family could not sleep due to the sounds of gunfire that grew louder as they came closer. They were the omens of terrible times and imminent catastrophic events.
At about 10:00 A.M., many of my relatives-mostly women and children from the west side-poured into Lalman Shah’s house, tears flowing down their faces. Wives had lost husbands and children had lost their parents. Others watched generations of memories vanish as the Pakistani army and Pathans ransacked and burned Hindu and Sikh homes. Everyone was in a state of shock or panic.
Death of my uncle Mohan Lal and grandmother Kartar Devi: At about 11:00 A.M., my elderuncle arrived and relayed that my grandmother and uncle had been killed. Their home, set afire by the Pakistani artillery, collapsed while they remained trapped inside. He was not sure whether the Pakistanis had shot them dead before the house caught fire. My uncle could not even reach his shop on the west side to retrieve cash and other valuables from his iron safe box. When he was halfway to his shop, he saw Pakistani soldiers in the main bazaar and immediately rushed to the eastside towards Lalman Shah’s house to join us.
Exodus: As the day progressed, many of my mother’s uncles, aunts, cousins, and their children arrived with similar stories. Within no time, over one hundred men, women, and children filled our house. After eating lunch, the elders decided it was best for all of us to flee the house. By this time, all our neighbors had evacuated their houses and left for the army cantonment.
Upon reaching the army cantonment, we discovered that the Kashmir army had already deserted it. The few remaining soldiers were wounded, helpless, and could not flee. The Pakistanis had placed machine guns at higher locations, and the cantonment looked like a one-way battlefield, with the showering of bullets coming only from the Pakistani army. Constant artillery fire on the open cantonment terrorized the vulnerable civilian population, and civilians fell all around us like sitting ducks. Some were crucified in the barbed wires surrounding the cantonment, their dead bodies left dangling on the fence. Others were hit by Pakistani snipers, their bodies tumbling into the trenches of the cantonment.Many others simply collapsed on the ground.
Goodbye to my mother:My family had to leave the cantonment, but my mother had an infection in her leg so she could not walk any farther. For her, crossing the trenches that surrounded the cantonment would be impossible. At that point, there was a silent pause and I knew what was about to happen. My mother gazed at my brother Ramesh and me with a quivering smile. She said goodbye to us and secured us under the care of aunts and uncles. She hugged me and my brother, and that hug tore my heart.”
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel