Rawalpindi massacres

Who: Sikh and Hindu villagers of the Pothohar districts of Rawalpindi, Attock and Jhelum, attacked by Muslim mobs. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says that in early March 1947 Sikhs in villages and small towns of Rawalpindi and Attock "had been savagely attacked by Muslim mobs". The Tribune's witness account names the mobs of the surrounding Pathan villages.

What: The violence followed Khizar Hayat's resignation as Punjab premier on 2 March 1947. In Pothohar it began in March, and sieges of Sikh villages began about 6 March.

At Thoa Khalsa, in Kahuta tehsil of Rawalpindi district, villagers held out for three days in Gulab Singh's haveli. When the mob closed in, the women went into a well. The accounts differ on details: the Tribune's witness account puts it on 9 March, SikhNet on 12 March. Both give 93 women. The woman who led them is named as Basant Kaur in one account and Maan Kaur in another. About 200 Sikh men were killed. At nearby Choha Khalsa, on 12 to 13 March, the Tribune account says at least 150 Sikhs died. SikhNet says the military arrived and rescued the survivors.

The Tribune's witness account says the official toll was 2,263 but SGPC reports suggested it was three times higher.

Where: The Pothohar plateau: Rawalpindi, Attock and Jhelum districts, with Thoa Khalsa and Choha Khalsa in Kahuta tehsil.

Why it mattered: The Encyclopaedia says the attacks were a "foretaste of Pakistan" that convinced many Sikhs they should not come under Muslim rule if they could avoid it. They were not the first big communal violence of that year of crisis, however: the Great Calcutta Killing began on 16 August 1946, with an estimated 5,000 dead and 15,000 injured, followed in October by attacks on Hindus in East Bengal and then on Muslims in Bihar.