The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 190
174 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN were awaiting the advent of the Commission on the subcontinent. The Commission gathered together at Geneva sometime during June and arrived in Karachi on the 7th of July, 1948. They came to make a formal call on me. I entertained them at tea and also had the relevant maps suspended on the wall of my sitting room, to explain to them what had happened between the passing of the resolution of the 21st of April and the time that the Commission came to the subcontinent. They were now confronted with a development which they had not contemplated while they were studying the case in Geneva, and this they regarded as a new element in the situation, which, indeed, it was. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India, has gone on asserting that Pakistan put in its regular forces and tried to conceal this fact from the Commission but could not succeed in doing so and had later to admit that this had been done. That is not correct. The Commission was told by me at the earliest what the situation was. India also raised certain objections on this later in the Security Council meetings. One was that we did not inform India in advance of what we proposed to do. This obviously was absurd. India did not inform us of what they had proposed to do. The situation being as it was, we had to take appropriate measures on our side. Secondly, that we did not inform the Security Council, but nor had India informed the Security Council that they intended to mount a military offensive. As to the Commission, I have explained that we informed the Commission as soon as it arrived in Karachi. There was no question of our having concealed the fact from the Commission till we could no longer deny it. We had never concealed the fact that from the first week of May of 1948 our regular forces were engaged in Kashmir. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru himself has gone on saying that from the beginning of May they had proof that our regular forces were engaged in the fighting in Kashmir. We had never denied that from the beginning of May they were so engaged. Yet, he has sometimes made the assertion: "The Foreign Minister of Pakistan stated before the Security Council repeatedly that the regular Pakistani troops were not engaged on that front, and then, of course, it was discovered that they were. " I made that statement before the Security Council in the months of February and March. Our regular forces were not engaged till early May. There was no contradiction.