1947 Mirpur massacre

The 1947 Mirpur Massacre was the killing of thousands of Hindu and Sikh refugees in Mirpur of today’s Azad Kashmir, by armed Pakistani tribesmen and Pakistani soldiers during the First Kashmir War. It followed the occupation of Mirpur by the raiders on 25 November 1947.

Background

Before the Kashmir War in 1947, the Mirpur District had about 75,000 Hindu and Sikhs, amounting to 20 percent of the population. A great majority of them lived in the principal towns of Mirpur, Kotli and Bhimber. Refugees from Jhelum in West Punjab had taken refuge in Mirpur, causing the non-Muslim population to increase to 25,000.

A similar situation occurred in the town of Rajouri, with thousands of Hindu and Sikh refugees fleeing and ballooning the population. Rajouri was captured on 7 November 1947 by tribal forces, several weeks before the capture of Mirpur. There also a large number of Hindus and Sikhs were massacred.

Event

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During the First Kashmir War, the revolt by the Majority Muslim population in the western side of J&K state grew into an armed rebellion against local Dogra administrators and troops. The 11th Cavalry, a Pakistani Army regiment helped Azad forces in capturing Mirpur where they had surrounded the Dogra garrison. On the morning of November 25, armed Pashtun militants entered the Mirpur city and set several parts of the city on fire, causing chaos and turmoil across the city. Large-scale rioting took place. Of the minority population, only about 2,500 Hindus or Sikhs escaped through the border to Jammu and Kashmir along with the State troops. Many Hindus and Sikhs were also hunted down and killed inside the small town of Chitterpari. The militants shot on sight every Hindu and Sikh that they saw. They either shot them or they hacked them to death with hammers, sticks, knives, and machetes which they were armed with. According to eye-witnesses, the Pathans killed their victims with a butcher’s knife while chanting the kalimas. The remainder of Sikhs and Hindus were marched to Ali Baig, where a gurdwara was converted into a prison camp, but the raiders killed 10,000 of the captives along the way and abducted 5,000 women. Only about 5,000 made it to Ali Baig, but they continued to be killed at a gradual pace by the captors. Many number of women committed mass suicide by consuming poison before falling into the hands of the militants, to avoid rape and abduction. Men also committed suicide. The estimates measure the death toll at over 20,000.

“A ‘greatly shocked’ Sardar Muhammad Ibrahim Khan”, the then president of Azad Kashmir, who visited the place during the event, “painfully confirmed that Hindus and Sikhs were ‘disposed of’ in Mirpur in November 1947, though he does not mention any figures.”

A 13 years old teenage girl from Mirpur Shrimai Chander Kanya attested that Muslim military (Pakistan Army) captured and distributed young Hindu girls who were running from Mirpur. Pakistan Army officers kept the captured Hindu and Sikh girls in Govindpur separately to rape them. Hindu and Sikh women were raped and abducted.

Aftermath

In March 1948, the ICRC rescued 1,600 of the survivors from Alibeg, who were resettled to Jammu and other areas of India. By 1951, only 790 non-Muslims remained in areas that came to comprise Azad Kashmir; down from a previous population of 114,000 which used to live there. Many Hindus and Sikhs from Muzaffarabad and Mirpur who were not killed became displaced within Jammu and Kashmir. To their displeasure, the Jammu and Kashmir government has not given them the status and associated benefits of internally displaced people causing them to be homeless even today.

The date of 25 November is remembered as the Mirpur Day in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, India.

Notes