The Qadian Diary — Page xvii
ix which has since become the subject of fierce historical debate, saw Gurdaspur form part of independent India. The announcement of the Radcliffe Award threw Gurdaspur and other border districts into turmoil, and as a Muslim majority dwelling situated within the border of India, Qadian was especially vulnerable. As a first hand witness to these events Hazrat Mirza Bashir Ahmad ra , catalogued the brutalities committed in Qadian in precise and unflinching detail in a regular series of diary entries. There are stories of dead bodies strewn across the streets of Qadian and its environs; the ransacking of Muslim properties including the home of Sir Chaudhry Zafarullah Khan; the creation of makeshift refugee camps across the town; bomb attacks on the central mosque of Qadian, Masjid Aqsa; and other horrifying acts of violence that left multitudes of people dead. The diary also records other moments of great historical significance such as the departure from Qadian of the then head of the community, Hazrat Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad ra , which represented the last time a khalifa of the movement would reside in Qadian. On 23 September, the author of the diary Hazrat Mirza Bashir Ahmad ra also left Qadian for the last time. However, this did not signal an end to the diary, and he continued to make regular updates to it based off reports received from Qadian. Originally written in Urdu as it eventually came to be known has been translated into English in various guises. Most notably an abridged English rendition of the diary was included in an information booklet titled Qadian—A Test Case which was sent to various government departments and foreign embassies to apprise them of the hardships suffered by the residents of Qadian during the disturbances and which listed certain demands of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community with regards to various injustices they had faced and the new political