Integrity Score 405
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Pakistan Shows its Hand continues...
The Hindu and Sikh police was wholly insufficient to control the situation. A part of it had also become partisan. Most of the members of the State forces of which over 35 per cent were Muslims-had either become deserters or assumed a partisan attitude. The Hindu and Sikh Dogra forces. scattered over 84,000 sq. miles of territory were too few to control both the situation in Jammu and stop Pak raids over a length of over two hundred miles of the border.
They were principally engaged in the defence of the border where they were being driven from pillar to post. All efforts were made with the limited means that were available to save mutual killing between the different communi- ties. Appeals were made to people to live in the State like brothers. All officers of the Government were instructed to do their best to end the communal trouble and to protect the lives of those who were the subject of attack by one community or the other. There had beer a laid at one of the border villages organized with the help of men from the Pakistan army. A number of persons had been killed.
The Chief of Staff with a small force was on the spot but had quietly slunk away to Jammu at midnight and allowed the Pakistani raiders to loot the village and kill a number of Hindus. As a consequence of these raids from the Pakistan side. the Hindu population residing near about the border left their houses and were being evacuated to several camps.
This produced a revengeful mood and Hindus had started killing Muslims here and there and burning their houses wherever they were in a position of vantage. The local authorities evacuated Muslims from the interior areas of the State to guarded camps located near Jammu Cantonment. The Hindu population of the border was also brought to separate camps and was also similarly guarded.
To be continued…