two thousand or more Sikhs and Hindus were killed between 5 and 8 March in villages near Rawalpindi and Attock, and tens of thousands fled from their homes. In some villages—in the words of Lt.-Gen. Frank Messervy, the northern command chief and a future head of the Pakistan army—‘savagery was carried out to an extreme degree’. Messervy admitted that the army’s ‘ex-soldiers and pensioners [had] been heavily involved’ in the violence.52
