This is in connection with “Goodbye Walton?” by Ahmed Rafay Alam published in your newspaper on Jan 5. Lahore’s Walton Airport holds great significance in our history. At the time of Partition an estimated one million Muslims, regardless of their age or sex, were systematically butchered in East Punjab by Sikh jathas, accompanied by the state armies of Patiala, Kaputhala and Faridkot. These were joined by armed bands of the Hindu fascist RSS. The murder and mayhem continued for more than three months until East Punjab was cleansed of its last Muslim.
Those that managed to survive were forced to seek shelter in Pakistan in what became the greatest migration in human history. Ultimately, nine million refugees from India, a quarter of West Pakistan’s total population were absorbed. The vast majority of these first came to stop at a huge refugee camp set up at Walton. It was a nightmarish place with sometimes more than two million destitute people milling about in abject misery and state of shock, not knowing where to go and what fate awaited them next.
Each of them had a horrendous story to tell of loved ones brutally hacked to death before their very eyes, women raped and abducted and all possessions lost. Hundreds perished every day from cholera and dysentery that were rampant but, incredibly, hardly anyone went without food. The inimitable citizens of Lahore rose to the occasion, as they always do. Day after day, week after week and for months on end a stream of horse carts laden with rotis plied between the city and the camp at Walton.
The place is of great significance in our history. The people who gave their lives and lost everything had committed no crime except that they had wanted a homeland where Muslims could have an independent existence of their own. Walton is where those that survived first felt secure and saw hope. For those of us who witnessed the phenomenon it is a matter of great shame that we have all but forgotten the great price that was paid by so many. The least that we could do is to dedicate a part of Walton and turn it into a public park with some inscriptions on its walls to keep the memory of those days and those people alive.
