17th Sep 2013
By S A Ishaqui
·
Indian soldiers sort
through the arms and equipment left behind after hostilities. Photo courtesy:
bharat-rakshak.com
65 years after
Operation Polo, the September 17, 1948, military action in which the Indian
Armed Forces annexed the state of Hyderabad into the Indian Union, Deccan
Chronicle talks to those who witnessed history being written to get a better
perspective of the polarising event, popularly called Hyderabad Police Action.
Kids were abandoned in fields
Nearly 66 years after
her escape from Ausa to Hyderabad, along with her husband and two kids,
90-year-old Zubeda Begum recalls that it took them 13 days to reach the city.
“My husband was a
prominent advocate and a landlord and militants targeted us. Thirty of us
started at night on foot and took shelter in the agricultural lands,” she said.
It took them a week
to reach Mominabad railway station, which was under the Army’s control. An
officer helped them board a bogie that was carrying horses.
“We were in that
bogie for more than 72 hours and ate and survived on whatever was given to the
horses,” she said, adding, “It was a horrible and terrifying experience. I saw
parents sacrifice their kids by leaving them in the fields to avoid the
attention of the armed forces.”
“We saw many being
killed by the armed forces. My husband too told me to abandon our kids as their
weeping may attract the attention of the forces. Somehow I managed to convince
him and we reached Hyderabad. Now they’re in their sixties,” Zubeda added.
“It was with surprise
that we saw a marriage procession in front of the Nampally railway
station There was literally no impact of the police action there,” she
said.
Abdul Shukur, 76,
from Chakur village near Bidar town, was a Muhajir who survived the militants’
attack. He says that whenever highway brigand Appa Rao’s gang raided their
village, they fled into the forest for shelter.
Another survivor, Md
Abdul Rawoof, 85, said they survived for days by eating leaves and stems when
militant groups attacked their village. He said that he had seen the army drag
out and kill about 60 people of his village (Ausa) on suspicion that they were
Razakars.
Not Police Action, it was Military Action
Narrating his experience of escaping from Ausa village in Latur
district of Maharashtra to Hyderabad, after a militant attack on his village,
Mohammed Khaleel Ahmed Siddique, 89, said, “After the killing of my uncle Abdul
Razaq by militants, my father forced us to leave the village. I, along with
some other youngsters, moved towards Hyderabad.”
“Armed forces deployed in the villages would not allow villagers
to come out of their houses during the day and we travelled through sorghum
(jowar) fields at night under the moonlight.”
“During the day, we used to take shelter in the shades of sorghum
plants which grew to about five to six feet in the month of September,” Ahmed
recalled, adding that they survived without food and water for about three
days. “Our group reached Balky, caught a train there and reached Hyderabad.”
The group was given shelter at the Muhajir camp near the High Court building in
Hyderabad.
“On our way to Balky, we found several dead bodies lying in pools
of blood in the fields and also in wells,” Siddique recalled.
“The elder son of Syed Kasim Razvi (head of the Razakars) was my
classmate. I don’t recall his name but I was close to Asif Razvi, Kasim Razvi’s
second son. I learnt Arabic and Urdu from Kasim Razvi’s wife as she taught the
children of the mohallah (locality),” he added.
“In my view, it was not a police action but a military action; we
could not find any police personnel but only Army personnel in our area at that
time,” he said.
Ahmed said that prior to the military action, the Razakar movement
was gaining momentum in the villages and each village, including theirs, was
provided one or two rifles by the Razakars.
