SOURCE: HT
After independence, Pakistan started working on a covert plan to implement Jinnah’s two-nation theory in Jammu & Kashmir. Pakistani General Akbar Khan in his book Raiders in Kashmir accepted his country’s role in Kashmir conflict. His strategy was to bleed India through guerilla and sabotage action in J&K.
On October 22, 1947, as part of Operation Gulmarg, Pakistan unleashed its tribal militia on Jammu and Kashmir.
The havoc wrecked by the Pakistan-backed terrorists on Baramulla remains etched in the memory of locals who lived to see the chaos unleashed by Islamabad.
Bleed India with a thousand cuts
Narrating the ordeal, New York Times journalist Robert Trumbull wrote, “Baramulla had been stripped of its wealth and young women before the tribesmen fled in face of the advancing Indian troops. Surviving residents estimated that 3,000 of their fellow townsmen, including four Europeans and a retired British Army Officer, Colonel Dykes, and his pregnant wife, were slain.”
Twenty-four hours after the Indian Army entered Baramulla only 1,000 people were left in the village which had a population of about 14,000.
Burning villages, looting, pillaging and raping women, the raiders were on their way to Srinagar.
Abdul Rahman of Baramulla who was a witness to the plunder carried out by Pakistan-backed invaders recorded his observations on the atrocities carried out by them.
The raiders did not touch the Muslims
The raiders, with all their ferocity, looted the Hindus to begin with, burnt the houses of the Sikhs and killed them, he said.
Due to this widespread arson and loot in Baramulla, the Sikhs and the Hindus fled. Their houses were torched and their women were raped and kidnapped by the terrorizers.
Several records state that Pak-backed tribal raiders left the Muslims, their property and women untouched. This was done to win their sympathy. However, with the arrival of the Indian Army in the Valley they turned on every Kashmiri irrespective of his faith.
The raiders were mostly tribesmen with a few Punjabi Muslims. Armed to the teeth, they were led by Pirs, Pakistan Army and Frontier Constabulary officers.
First Kashmir War and beyond
The first Indo-Pakistan War over Kashmir was a limited affair with Islamabad sowing the seeds of continued low-grade warfare in the region.
Pakistan planned to realize its political goal in J&K by artificially creating and nurturing insurgency. Its modus operandi has not changed since then with the Pakistan Military and ISI relying on insurgents from PoK and Kashmir to bleed India with a thousand cuts.
Pakistan has been very consistent with its propaganda. In the first Kashmir war it twisted the narrative to show that the attack carried by the tribal militia in Kashmir was “spontaneous”.
However, learning from its failures in this first bloody confrontation with India, Pakistan started backing, funding and training insurgents. With Afghan Jihad serving as a template, Kashmir witnessed the rise of political Islam in Kashmir which was fuelled by Pakistan by backing insurgency in J&K with the plan to overthrow India out of the state.
If Muslim Conference helped the raiders in 1947, Hurriyat parroted Pakistan’s line on Kashmir.
From Operation Gibraltar to Operation Tupac, Pakistan created a monster, a leviathan which has been destroying the lives of Kashmiris since 1947.
