T H E I N F O R M A L WAR

of Kashmir. The Mangla Headworks were actually in Kashmir and the

Marala Headworks were within a mile or so of the border. What then
would be our position if Kashmir was in Indian hands?14
Due to Hari Singh s dithering, Pakistan came to believe the Maharaja was tilting
towards India, something that created the gravest suspicions and uneasiness .15
Akbar Khan was now tasked with organizing a covert invasion of Jammu and
Kashmir, in an effort to settle the issue by force. His efforts resulted in a wr
itten
plan, Armed Revolt Inside Kashmir, which was approved with some variations
after a conference with top political leaders in Pakistan, including Prime Minis
ter
Liaqat Ali Khan. The assault plans envisaged the use of irregulars, former soldi
ers
and a small core of serving personnel, armed with 4,000 Punjab Police rifles and
Army ordnance secretly diverted for use in Jammu and Kashmir.16
Although the Muslim League leader Mian Iftikharuddin had told Khan in
September 1947, that any action was to be of an unofficial nature, and no
Pakistani troops or officers were to take an active part in it , the reality was
very different.17 Officers of the Pakistan Air Force provided winter clothing,
ammunition and weapons, for example, while the senior civil servant Khawja
Abdul Rahim collected funds, volunteers and weapons.18 All of this was fairly
evident to contemporary observers. Writing in the London Observer of November
2, 1947, Alan Morehead reported that recruitment was underway not only in
tribal territory, but in Pakistan itself .19 The eminent photographer and journali
st
Margaret Bourke-White has recorded that local offices of the Muslim
League were used to pass arms to the assault groups
an account that tallies
with Akbar Khan s insider story, and sheds light on the complicity of official
Pakistan in the enterprise.20 Jinnah s own personal secretary Khurshid Ahmed
was arrested in Srinagar on November 2, 1947, in the possession of maps and
documents suggesting that he had hoped to organize an uprising against the
administration.21
Events in Poonch provided a gateway for regular and irregular Pakistani forces
to assault the main prize the Kashmir valley and, the state s capital, Srinagar.
On October 22, 1947, troops of the Muzaffarabad-based 4 Jammu and Kashmir
Infantry, a unit raised from the Poonch area, mutinied, killing their comrades a
nd
their commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Narain Singh. Ironically, Narain
Singh had previously rejected efforts by his force headquarters to replace the
Poonch Muslim troops under his command, scoffing at claims that they might
prove disloyal.22 Shortly afterwards, the rebels of the 4 Jammu and Kashmir
Infantry were joined by Pakistani irregular forces that had been waiting across
the border. The invaders were soon in Uri, where they brushed off resistance by
outnumbered State Forces, and Baramulla by October 27. Srinagar was now just
a few miles away, for all practical purposes, undefended.
At this point, however, the invading force made a critical error. The tribesmen
Mohmand and Afridi, Wazir and Mahsud
of the north-west were superb fighters,
but saw little distinction between military conquest and war for pillage. For th
ree
21