LONDON: “Almost to a man Pakistanis sincerely believe that Hindu leaders, though obliged to accept partition in order to get rid of the British, have not and never have had any intention of allowing it to work. My own view is that if bitter feeling exists among the Muslims it is not surprising,” says Brigadier Desmond Young, well known in Delhi as a wartime Army publicity chief…[,] in the “Spectator”… .

Brigadier Young said: “British Officers — infantrymen from the desert battles — have told me that three weeks from Aug. 15 in the Punjab were worse than anything we experienced in war. They blamed the Sikhs most… . It is undeniable that from the day of Master Tara Singh’s speech, if not before, the Sikhs began their preparations. In making them they had covert assistance of rulers of some, at least, of Sikh States who supplied them with arms. It is equally certain that the massacre of Muslims in Delhi in September was the result of a carefully organised Sikh conspiracy and it was not, as the Hindu press tried to make out, a spontaneous act of revenge by Sikh refugees from Western Punjab. — News agencies

Published in Dawn, December 7th, 2022