Hamid Mir
It was a few years ago. Imran Khan was the Prime Minister and this little thing was banned in the Pakistani media. By the grace of ISI Chief Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed, I was not only removed from the TV screen but my column in the print media was also banned. I started writing columns in The Washington Post and DW Urdu. A collection of columns written during this period of restrictions was published in 2023 under the title “Sach Bolna Manna Hai”. This book also included a column written on Independence Day 2021, which mentioned the massacre of Muslims in Jammu in 1947. I had told that my mother had saved her life by hiding under the bodies during the migration from Jammu, but my grandmother was kidnapped and then my mother spent her entire life searching for her missing mother.
Sometime after the publication of this book, an elderly woman contacted me through a friend in Toronto. This woman knew both my grandmother and mother and was their local resident in Jammu. This elderly woman did not like to talk much about herself but kept asking me, “You mention the 1947 massacre, but why don’t you tell me who carried out the massacre?” I offered to interview her on tv and she would tell me frankly who carried out the massacre.
After a few moments of silence, the woman spoke very slowly: “Son, I am not capable of showing my appearance to anyone, how will I come on TV?” Then after a while, the woman mentioned a name twice – “Yadvendra Singh.” It is Yadvendra Singh who destroyed us all. Saying this, she started crying – someone else took the phone from her hand. Now I heard a male voice. Sat Sri Akal Ji, my name is Armaan Singh and just now my mother was talking to you, she is not talking to you anymore. Your kindness has spoken to us on Shahid Sahib’s request – Shahid Sahib lives in Toronto – I have known Shahid since the days of Government College Lahore, and he is also a friend of Armaan Singh. I asked Armaan Singh who is this Yadvendra Singh? He replied that in 1947 this person was the Maharaja of Patiala and we are also from Patiala, but my mother is from Jammu and is a big fan of yours. My Pakistani friends talk a lot about you. When you were banned during General Musharraf’s rule, my mother used to speak ill of Musharraf. I asked her why she was so against Musharraf. Armaan Singh told me that Musharraf had done a great favour to the Indian Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh by inviting him to Pakistan. Because of Amarinder, Mataji became Musharraf’s enemy. I then asked her why she hates Amarinder Singh. Armaan replied that Amarinder Singh is the son of Yadavendra Singh and Mataji dislikes everything related to Yadavendra. After this phone conversation, I tried to get more details about this elderly woman through Shahid, but Shahid was very cautious. Once he had come to Pakistan. He met me at a function of the Old Ravens Union in Lahore. On my insistence, he told me that the elderly woman he had talked to on the phone had been kidnapped from Jammu in October 1947. The massacre in Jammu was carried out by the army sent by Maharaja Patiala Yadavendra Singh in collaboration with the RSS – the woman was about fourteen or fifteen years old at that time. Many Muslim women were kidnapped and first taken to Gurdaspur – some Muslim women were returned in exchange for kidnapped Hindu women, but young Muslim girls were sold – this Muslim girl was gifted by an officer of the Maharaja Patiala’s army to a senior officer in Patiala along with four other Muslim women – at that time the houses of the officers of the Maharaja Patiala’s army were full of young Muslim women – these women were also from Patiala and some were kidnapped and brought from Jammu to save the girl brought from Jammu from being sold, a young Sikh from the Maharaja of Patiala married her. This Sikh was a student of the Maharaja of Patiala’s personal physician, Dr. Abdul Aziz Khan.
When the Maharaja of Patiala, Yadavendra Singh, stripped the kidnapped Muslim women naked and paraded them in Patiala in September 1947, Dr. Abdul Aziz Khan protested against this, upon which Yadavendra Singh had Dr. Abdul Aziz Khan’s eyes gouged out with a dagger and had him mercilessly killed. This Sikh doctor began to hate Yadavendra from the bottom of his heart. This kind-hearted Sikh married an oppressed Muslim girl in a fake marriage and brought her to Delhi. In 1951, the Sikh doctor, with the help of a Muslim friend, found the girl’s family in Sialkot. The girl’s parents had been killed in Jammu. The girl’s elder sister was still missing and her two brothers lived with her uncle in Sialkot. He refused to accept his sister under the pressure of her uncle. The Sikh doctor assured her that he had married her only to save the girl’s life and had not entered marital relations with her. But the girl’s uncle said that if the girl returned, we would not be able to show our faces to anyone.
Now this oppressed girl had no choice. She became the real wife of the Sikh doctor. Armaan Singh was born in 1956. After some time, the family came to Canada. Last year, Shahid told me that Armaan Singh had come to Pakistan. He got me to talk to Armaan Singh again. He was a disciple of Baba Farid in Sialkot, Imam Ali-ul-Haq. I had come to visit the shrine of Imam Sahib, when I asked him the reason for visiting the shrine of Imam Sahib, he did not tell me the reason. When I asked about Mataji, he said that Mataji cannot travel, she loves Pakistan very much, but she says that whom will I meet there? Mataji misses her parents very much who were killed for the sake of Pakistan and till today she curses Yadavendra Singh – Armaan Singh said that he was ten years old when his father was killed in a car accident in Toronto – Mataji did not remarry and raised me and my sister by working hard – We sometimes visit Delhi or Patiala, but Mataji never went there – Her heart is stuck in Pakistan – She keeps track of all her relatives who were not ready to adopt her – Armaan Singh said that you may not value Pakistan that much, but my Mataji values Pakistan very much, she sacrificed her honour for your country. I asked, “If I come to Toronto, will you introduce me to Mataji?” Armaan Singh said, “I will definitely introduce you to Mataji, but Mataji will not give an interview because her Pakistani relatives will be disgraced and she does not want to make them miserable even in her dying moments.”
