But in the Jammu Province, things went very differently. There, unlike every other part of the State, Hindus and Sikhs slightly outnumbered Muslims; and within a period of eleven weeks starting in August, systematic savageries, similar to those already launched in East Punjab and in Patiala and Kapurthala, practically eliminated the entire Muslim element in the population, amounting to 500,000 people. About 200,000 just disappeared, remaining untraceable, having presumably been butchered, or died from epidemics or exposure. The rest fled destitute to West Punjab….This writer talked about it early in the following month with Mr. Gandhi, deducing that, even more than the carnage in and around Delhi itself, it explained the despairing mood of that great teacher of ahimsa during his last few weeks of life.
A few excerpts from the Official Records
Official Records of the United Nations Security Council, Meeting No:234, 1948, pp.249-250:
Special Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph of London, Douglas Brown, in the issue of 12 January 1948:
"Yet another element in the situation is provided by Sikh refugees from the West Punjab who have seized Muslim lands in Jammu…. They originated the massacres there last October, to clear for themselves new Sikh territory to comensate for their losses in Pakistan and to provide part of the nucleus of a future Sikhistan. "
Official Records of the United Nations Security Council, Meeting No:534, 6 March 1951, pp.3-4:
Shortly after the terrible slaughters in India, which accompanied partition, the Maharaja set upon a course of action whereby, in the words of the special correspondent of The Times of London published in its issue of 10 October 1948,"in the remaining Dogra area, 237,000 Muslims were systematically exterminated, unless they escaped to Pakistan along the border, by all the forces of the Dogra State headed by the Maharaja in person and aided by Hindus and Sikhs."
Official Records of the United Nations Security Council, Meeting No:226, 1948, pp.71-2