Event # 4, 1965 War with India :-

When India attacked Pakistan in September 1965, I was in Lahore serving with two associate British companies as their Divisional Manager. I used to live in house # N - 616, Samanabad with my wife and one daughter, had a Fiat 1100-D model, brand new white car which I had purchased in August ’65 . I had a phone (60572) at my residence and a Great Dane white dog which two things had made me very prominent in the locality ! Top personalities like Prof. Sufi Tabassum , Ashfaq Ahmed, Makeen Ahson Kaleem, etc., did not have a phone, those days, at their residences and they often used to come to my house to phone. Ashfaq Ahmad & Bano Qudsia who were my good neighbours for so many years, had, only a month before Sept, moved out to Model Town when Ashfaq got a job as Director, in the Urdu Development Board. Zubair Rizki, Br. Manager, Lahore, , of Rizivi Bros of Karachi had occupied the house vacated by Ashfaq Ahmed.

The news of the Indian attack came as a shock. Hundreds of Samanabad residents locked their houses and left for the places in the interior districts of the Punjab. By the evening of 7^th Sept., I had keys of about 30 houses of families who knew me. Majority of the well to do ‘Zinda-Dilan-e-Lahore’ was on the run. The city then had only one old bridge on river Ravi which got over-loaded with “traffic” that was moving out. As a result army had to build a temporary bridge for the movement of her troops. Then in the after-noon, General Ayub Khan came on air and delivered his master-speech; ‘THE HUNDRED MILION PEOPLE OF PAKISTAN, WHOSE HEART BEAT WITH “LA-ILAHA-IL-LUL LAH” WILL NOT REST TILL THE INDIAN GUS ARE SILENCED FOR EVER” .It created a new courage and confidence in the entire nation …… (from Peshawer to Chittagong) 60 % in East Pakistan and 40 % in West Pakistasn.

Pakistan’s famous artist, Mr. A. Rehman Chughtai, was in early Sept. in Dacca attending an exhibition of his paintings. He was one of my patrons. I was Divisional Manager of two associate British companies (The Wiggins Teape Group) dealing in Paper, Printing Machines, etc. We had a beautiful office in Malik Chambers at 17 Lake Road, with a well-decorated Reception Room. Chughtai Sahib, Naseem Hejazi Sahib and Maulana Kousar Niazi used to be there almost every alternate day to have Coffee / Tea / Lassi, & for the “Miss-use” of the Company-telephone !

When Chughtai Sahib returned to Lahore after the Cease Fire, he told us what happened there during his visit to Dacca. When he reached Dacca a week before Sept. 6, he felt himself a stranger as people used to see him differently in his Solar-hat & talking in Urdu with Punjabi accent. Then on the 6^th evening, after Ayub Khan’s speech Dacca was a different city. In no time, over a million people were there on the streets, shouting “Alla-hu-Akbar” and “Pakistan Zindabad”. All the Hindu shopkeepers closed their businesses and disappeared. Every day till the Cease Fire, there used to be big demonstrations after Namaz-Zohar & prayers for the success of Pakistan Army. When ever the news of an Indian Air Force plane was shot down in the West Pakistan skies, the entire city population would come out on streets and dance in jubilation. When he was returning to Lahore, he was flooded with gifts & flowers and

Chughtai was no more a stranger !

Here in West Pakistan, on the 7^th of Sept., a news that Indian Air Force would drop Para-troopers (Commandos) in Lahore, terrorised the city. We immediately constituted groups of volunteers to guard every locality after the sun-set. I went to the Addl. District Magistrate, Raja Saleem Akhter (father of Test Cricketers Waseem & Rameez Raja) and asked him for two pistol Licences. He asked the reason & need for two. I answered that one would be for myself and the other for my wife. In case I might not be at home and an Indian Commando would enter my house, she be able to kill him. Saleem Akhtar became so emotional with that reply that he came out of his office, and holding my arm up, shouted before the crowd of applicants for gun licence, that we would not be defeated in this war having such defenders like Siddiqis.

Event # 5, Tash-khund & Z.A.Bhutto:-

(To be continued.)