The Qadian Diary — Page 17
17 protected. One group is brought together in the boarding house of the Talimul-Islam High School. A similar number of people are gathered in the homes of the head of the Ahmadiyya Community and his relatives as well as in Madrasa Ahmadiyya and the houses around it. In this way, thousands of Ahmadis are packed into buildings that could otherwise only accommodate a few hundred people. Every day these buildings are deluged with night soil, which young Ahmadis laboriously sweep away in the morning. As Ahmadi flour mills are closed, the people encamped in these buildings are forced to live on boiled wheat, although a small amount of ground wheat is made available for the sick, elderly, and for nursing mothers through the efforts of Ahmadi volunteers who grind the wheat for them. Owing to the precarious security situation, during this period, there is no communication between the two camps. When people do try to venture out they are shot at. Darul Salam as well as the homes of the late Nawab Muhammad Ali Khan and Captain Mirza Sharif Ahmad are forcibly taken possession of. 4 October 1947 A foot convoy of almost 40,000 Muslims sets off from Qadian under an Indian military escort. However, within undertaking six miles of their journey they are attacked by Sikh militias. Many hundreds of people are killed and numerous women are abducted. Whatever belongings they were carrying are taken from them. Those on the ground claim that for days the bodies of the dead lay strewn on the side of the canal for many miles. The curfew placed over Qadian is lifted for a short period of time. Some Ahmadis venture out to other parts of the town to