Wings of Duty — Page 54

Syed Muhammad Ahmad 54 A few days later, we received news that in a place called Ajnala which was within the boundaries of the new Indian border north-west of Amritsar, hundreds of Muslims were trapped in their houses because Hindus and Sikhs were conducting a blockade of their town to starve them out and kill them. Huzoor was very upset at this news and immediately ordered the community in Lahore to prepare thousands of rotis in the langar khana and make small provision packs. I was told to fly to Ajnala and drop these packs on the roofs of the Muslim homes that were under siege. We took a large number of packs by jeep to Walton Airport. I was helped by Huzoor’s driver, Nazeer. He and I filled all the space behind the back seat of the L-5. We flew to the designated area, and with great care, dropped the packs in twos and threes over the houses. The people below were so desperate with hunger that whenever a person picked up a pack, someone sturdier would snatch it away from them. In this scrimmage, many of the provisions were wasted. The staff at the langar khana had also made the mistake of making the packs out of old newspapers. As soon as they were dropped from the plane, the paper would fly off and the unwrapped rotis would land on the ground. Despite this, these deprived people were still able to