A forgotten chapter of Partition: Genocide of Hindus-Sikhs in Alibeg Prison

Arun Anand

This is one of the most shocking incidents that took place during the partition of India. Even more shocking is the fact that we have conveniently forgotten it. And so has the world.

This is the story of the brutal killing of nearly 5000 innocent Hindus and Sikhs in Ali Beg jail between 1947-48.

 Ali Beg jail is located in Mirpur, a city which is currently part of the Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir. The city that had a predominantly Hindu and Sikh population was attacked by the Muslim tribesmen and the Pakistani army on 25 November 1947 where it slaughtered more than 18000 Hindus and Sikhs on a single day.

Around 5000 Hindu and Sikhs were taken to Ali Beg prison. Before that around 10,000 of them were slaughtered during their march to this prison.  K R Sudhakar Rao has shared some gory details of the genocide that took place at Alibeg prison in ‘Whispers of the Unknown Kashmir Files’(pp24-27).  ‘Ali Beg was just two miles from Pakistani border. A Sikh gurudwara was converted into a prison and five thousand people were imprisoned there. The Pakistani army turned it into a slaughterhouse. For the first 20 days, 50 to 100 people were taken out of the gurudwara every night and were shot dead. By the end of December around 2000 people had been massacred. Another 1000 people-very young and the very old died of disease, anxiety and fear.”

 In January 1948, the International Red Cross arrived at Ali Beig jail and the pathetic conditions and brutalities on Hindus and Sikhs came to light. According to Rao, Sardar Lal Singh Kakkar of Mirpur, along with some others, came to (Mahatma) Gandhi ji about the heart-breaking conditions of Hindu and Sikh refugees in Alibeg jail. It was January 27, 1948. They asked Gandhiji to save the Hindus of Alibeg. He replied that there was snowfall there, so our army cannot go.  But the locals told Gandhiji that there was no snowfall in Mirpur. Gandhi and Nehru did not utter a single word. They returned thinking that they interacted with a rock or a stone. After that they wanted to meet Gandhiji once again and appeal to him to save Hindus of Alibeg. In the meantime, Gandhi ji was assassinated.

  Bal K Gupta, who was imprisoned as a 10-year-old in Alibeg prison until he was rescued from it in March 1948 had documented what happened there in his memoirs. That probably is the only first-hand account of what happened in Alibeg prison.

Gupta recorded, “It took the Red Cross a day to count us. They packed everyone into 60 trucks and brought them to Jammu. Hindus and Sikhs, fearing they would miss the buses did not care for food but stood in queues. Finally, on March 18, 1948, sixteen hundred Hindus and Sikhs were brought to the railway station called Sarai Alamgir. They stuffed them in coaches and brought them to Jammu. We had no food, no water, no lights in the compartments. They put another 150 people from the Datial camp on the same train. One of them was Krishna Mehta, she later became MP from Jammu and Kashmir.”

The journey back to  India wasn’t easy even after being rescued from the hell named Alibeg prison.  Gupta recalled the train journey of the Hindus-Sikhs who had survived, “A few hours later, a mob of Muslims attacked the women who had come from Datial camp.  They tried to kidnap the women. But when the women screamed loudly, the police and other men ran to save them. No one could sleep that night. The next day, the train left at 5 am and reached Lahore by noon. In Lahore, Muslim fanatics had already massacred many Hindu refugees in train coaches. That day too, armed thugs gathered to attack them but they could not get inside.

That day the train stopped in Lahore all day. There was no way to get off the coach even to drink water. The Pakistani authorities did not make any arrangements. We somehow managed to save our breath with the only hope that we would reach India by dawn. Finally on the evening of March 19, the train moved. At around 5 pm, we crossed the Wagah border. As soon as we reached Attari (Indian territory), Hindus and Sikhs kissed the ground beneath their feet. The Sikhs in Attari prepared food for the refugees. That was the last train from Pakistan.”

Rao summarises this blood-soaked chapter of our forgotten history aptly, “The world is still discussing Auschwitz, Cambodia, Serbia and Srebrenica. Why doesn’t anyone remember Alibeg? Because we ourselves have forgotten Alibeg. How will the world remember if we ourselves forget it?”

The writer is an author and a columnist.