|
so:text
|
For example, one report which appeared in The Statesman of April 15, 1947 narrates an event that took place in village Thoha Khalsa of Rawalpindi District. It is a story of tears and shame and also of great sacrifice and heroism. The story tells us how the Hindu-Sikh population of this tiny village was attacked by 3000-strong armed Muslims, how badly outweaponed and outnumbered, the beseiged had to surrender, but how their women numbering 90 in order to “evade inglorious surrender” and save their honour jumped into a well “following the example of Indian women of by-gone days.” Only three of them were saved. “There was not enough water in the well to drown them all,” the report adds. The author also gives an 85-page long “list of atrocities,” date by date and region by region, that took place during the months from mid-December 1946 to the end of August 1947. And these represent only “a small fraction of what really happened,” and they have to be multiplied “a hundred-fold or more… to get the right proportions,” the author says. (en) |
