An attack on a railway train carrying Muslim refugees during the Partition of India was carried out at Amritsar in Indian Punjab on 22 September 1947.[1][2][3] Three thousand Muslim refugees were killed[1][2] and a further one thousand wounded.[4] Only one hundred passengers remained uninjured.[5] These murders demonstrated that railway carriages provided very little protection from physical assault.[6] After several such attacks on Muslim refugees by Sikhs armed with rifles, swords, and spears, the Government of Pakistan stopped all trains from the Indian Punjab to the Pakistani Punjab at the end of September 1947.[7] The Sikh Jathas, which were ruthless, led the attacks for ethnically cleansing the Eastern Punjab of its Muslim population. Earlier in September, they had massacred 1,000 Muslim refugees on a Pakistan-bound train near Khalsa College, Amritsar.[8] The violence was the most pronounced in the Indian East Punjab.[9]
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Sir Francis Mudie who had become governor of the West Punjab in mid-August 1947, noted that a quick succession of attacks on refugee trains headed west to the border from Amritsar and Jullundur districts in East Punjab, India, between 21 and 23 September 1947 included one on a train in which every occupant aboard was killed.[10]
On Monday, 22 September 1947, a train was leaving 30 miles east from Amritsar and was attacked by Sikhs. This attack was repulsed. Trains carrying Sikh troops did pass by during the attack, but they did not intervene. However, when the same train arrived at Amritsar, crowds of armed Sikh people opened fire at it from both sides of the track. Hindu Jats, the train's escorts, were ordered by the commanding British officer to shoot at the attackers but they deliberately missed the attackers. The commanding officer of the train was left alone to fend for the train. He reportedly shot back at the raiders with a machine gun until it ran out of ammunition. He was killed soon after, reportedly by his own men.[4] Men, women, and children were attacked by Sikhs who swept through the train. The weapons used by the Sikhs during the three hour attack included swords, spears and rifles. The next day, the train was returned to its platform.[4]
The West Punjab Government announced other attacks that happened during the 1947 Partition of India. This included the attack of a refugee train in Kamoke carrying Sikh-Hindu passengers around 25 miles west of Lahore on Wednesday, 24 September. This attack was responsible for a further 340 deaths of both Sikhs and Hindus and wounded a further 250.[4] Following the massacre the West Punjab Government announced a ban on refugee convoys from West Punjab.[5]
Meetings within the Indian cabinet to stop further attacks were called the next day, as reported by the Associated Press of Great Britain. Military spokesmen reported on the mounting tensions in the Punjab and the serious attacks on refugee trains and convoys.[4]
Aguiar, Marian (2011). "Partition and the Death Train". Tracking Modernity: India's Railway and the Culture of Mobility. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press. p. 75. ISBN 978-0-8166-6560-0. The trains were not safe, however, for they did not have proper state protection, and the soldiers who did travel on-board often had their own communal allegiances. An article in an October 1947 issue of the British Railway Gazette noted that 3,000 passengers had been killed on a Muslim refugee train in Amritsar. (Footnote 8, Notes to Chapter 3: "Indian Railways," British Railway Gazette, October 3, 1947, 390.)
"Indian Railway". Railway Gazette. 87 (October): 390. 1947. (Footnote *) Since this article was received, an attack on a Muslim refugee train at Amritsar resulted in 3,000 passengers being killed; and 340 Hindus and Sikhs were killed when several thousand Muslims made a reprisal attack on a refugee train at Kamoke, 25 miles from Lahore, on September 24—Ed. R. G.
" Khosla, Gopal Das (1989). Stern Reckoning: A Survey of the Events leading up to and following the Partition of India. Delhi: Oxford University Press. p. 286. ISBN 9780195624175. OCLC 22415680. Two great tragedies were enacted during the last week of September. One was an attack on a Muslim refugee train at Amritsar on the evening of September 22. Mention has been made of the non-Muslim refugee train from Pind Dadan Khan which was attacked at three different places. When this train arrived at Amritsar, the news of the attack and the heavy loss of non-Muslim life spread through Amritsar and caused bitter resentment. On the evening of September 22, a Muslim refugee train on its way to Lahore was held up and attacked. It is feared that the loss of Muslim life was very heavy.
Revill, George (2012). Railway. London: Reaktion Books. p. 98. ISBN 978-1-86189-874-6. Yet at the close of colonialism, when British India was in the process of partition, railway carriages provided little protection from physical violence and political turmoil. In October 1947, amid large-scale migration between Hindu and Muslim regions, 3,000 passengers were killed on a Muslim refugee train in Amritsar.
Asbrink, Elisabeth (2016). "1947 September". 1947: Where Now Begins. Translated by Fiona Graham. New York: Other Press. pp. 203–204. ISBN 9781590518960. LCCN 2017040450. Amritsar: Sikhs armed with rifles, swords, and spears attack seven trains of Muslim refugees. Men, women, and children: 3,000 people are murdered. The Pakistani Government now stops all trains between the Indian Punjab and the Pakistani Punjab.
Talbot, Ian (2008). "Partition of India". In Stone, Dan (ed.). Historiography of Genocide. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. p. 429. The jathas led the attacks on Muslims that ethnically cleansed them from the East Punjab. From May onwards, there had been a widespread collection of funds, manufacture and import of weapons and the establishment of an organization of 'dictators', 'company commanders' and village 'cells'. Little is known about their total numbers, the second rank of leaders or their composition, save that many ex-servicemen from both the British Indian Army and the Indian National Army were in their ranks. During the final days before the publication of the Radcliffe Boundary award, jathas commenced heavy raids on Muslim villages in 'border' areas. The jathas were ruthlessly efficient killing machines which carefully targeted their victims. They were well armed with Sten guns, rifles, pistols, spears, swords and kirpans (steel sword/dagger) and were well organised. The largest was around 3,000 strong. They later preyed on refugee foot columns and trains. An attack on a Pakistan bound Special just outside Khalsa College, Amritsar that was marked by military precision, resulted in the massacre of over 1,000 Muslims.(Footnote: 80. Civil and Military Gazette (Lahore) 19 September 1947.)
Talbot, Ian (2008). "Partition of India". In Stone, Dan (ed.). Historiography of Genocide. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. p. 427. The violence was at its greatest in East Punjab.(Footnote 63): British observers commented that refugees fleeing from Jullundur and Ludhiana experienced, 'far worse treatment than anything ... in Montgomery and Lahore'. Report of Mr Hadow's Tour of Jullundur, Hoshiarpur, Ludhiana and Ferozepore Districts. 7 January 1948. East Punjab Affairs 1947–50. G2275/80 Do. 35,3181, Dominions Office and Commonwealth Relations Office PRO.
Thomas, Martin (2014). Fight or flight: Britain, France, and their Roads from Empire. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. p. 104. ISBN 9780199698271. LCCN 2013937985. Muslim refugees heading in the opposite direction from East to West Punjab faced similar perils. A spate of attacks in the Jullundur and Amritsar districts between 21 and 23 September 1947 culminated in the killing of every person aboard a packed refugee train making for the border. (Footnote 34. IOR, MSS EUR, Mudie papers, F164/16, Colonel, Advanced HQ/ME Pakistan, Amritsar, 'Report on East Punjab Situation', 24 Sept. 1947.)
