SRINAGAR —In the quiet lanes of Jammu’s old quarters, 63-year-old Israr Ahmad Khan still lives with memories passed down from his father, memories soaked in blood, fear, and silence.
“My father was young then,”
Khan recalls that while his voice was trembling.
“Many of our relatives were brutally killed. It was madness; there was no humanity left.”
In November 1947, months after the partition of British India, the Jammu region witnessed one of the least remembered but deadliest massacres of the subcontinent. Historians estimate that between 20,000 and 237,000 Muslims were killed by mobs and militias backed by the forces of the Dogra ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh. What began as scattered violence soon turned into a coordinated campaign to alter Jammu’s demography, transforming a Muslim-majority region into a Hindu-dominated province.
Trucks of Death
According to survivors, Muslim families were told they would be safely escorted to Pakistan. “People gathered their children and climbed into the trucks, thinking they were being sent to Sialkot,” says a local historian, PG Rasool, who has written The Historical Reality of Kashmir Dispute.
“But those trucks never reached Sialkot,” he says quietly. “They were driven to the forests of Rajouri and never returned.”
Historians such as Idrees Kanth, from the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, describe these convoys as “trucks of death,” part of a systematic purge carried out between October and November 1947. “The Dogra troops began expelling Muslims from their villages and later executed them under the guise of evacuation.” Many of the victims were ambushed in forests and riversides; their bodies were never recovered.
We Lost Everything
For families like Khan’s, the tragedy was personal and generational. “Our relatives crossed into Pakistan and never came back,” he says. “The massacre divided us forever. There were a lot of Muslims in Jammu then, but now you won’t find many.”
Before the killings, Muslims made up over 60% of Jammu’s population. Within months, they became a minority. The 1961 census recorded barely 10% Muslims in the district, a demographic collapse so stark that historians call it the first large-scale ethnic cleansing of Partition.
The Politics of Silence
The killings took place under the rule of Maharaja Hari Singh, who was struggling to keep his princely state independent amid growing pressure from both India and Pakistan. Refugees, mainly Hindus and Sikhs fleeing violence in West Punjab, poured into Jammu, bringing stories of Muslim atrocities. Revenge spiraled. The Dogra Army, along with extremist groups like the RSS and Akal Sena, turned their fury on local Muslims.
“The massacre was not spontaneous,” says Rasool. “It was state-sponsored and state-supported. The Dogra forces called in RSS men and militias from Patiala to cleanse the region.”
Even Mahatma Gandhi, in his speech in December 1947, condemned the killings, saying the Dogra ruler had “dishonoured humanity.”
Yet, the tragedy soon disappeared from official narratives. “There was an attempt to bury it,” says Ved Bhasin, a veteran journalist who witnessed the aftermath. “When Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah visited Jammu, Muslim delegations begged for justice, but they were silenced.”
A Forgotten Chapter
Many historians believe the Dogra administration deliberately destroyed records of the killings. “This is why we don’t have exact figures,” Kanth explains. “It was an effort to erase the crime from history.”
Pakistan estimates claim more than 237,000 Muslims were killed, while Indian sources record far fewer. But even conservative figures confirm tens of thousands dead, and nearly half a million Muslims displaced to Pakistan’s Punjab province. The tragedy didn’t end with the killings; it reshaped the entire political map. The depopulation of Muslims in Jammu became a key factor in Hari Singh’s decision to accede to India, and that, in turn, ignited the Kashmir conflict.
Two Sides of the Tragedy
The violence of 1947 affected multiple communities on both sides of the new border. In areas like Mirpur and Muzaffarabad, displaced groups and local militias attacked Hindus and Sikhs, causing deaths and abductions, leaving families separated across the border. Still, for survivors like Khan, the imbalance of remembrance stings. “In India, no one talks about what happened to Jammu’s Muslims,” he says. “We are ghosts in our own history.”
Legacy of Silence
Every year on November 6, Pakistan observes Jammu Martyrs’ Day. The tragedy remains absent from Indian textbooks, and political discourse has reduced it to a footnote of Partition.
Modern scholars argue that this silence perpetuates historical wounds. The Jammu massacres are not just history but a reminder that truth in South Asia is selective and reconciliation is impossible without recognition.” The violence of 1947 left deep scars, with thousands of Muslims killed, families displaced, and communities fractured. These events were compounded over the decades by India’s attempts at violent abrogations of constitutional rights in Kashmir, systematic marginalization of Muslims, and ongoing state-backed oppression. Today, the legacy of these historical atrocities continues to fuel resentment and highlight the persistent injustices faced by the Kashmiri people.
