RazPaK
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You are asking for a very long post.
It is not quite clear how the riots in Punjab started. Muslims blame Master Tara Singh's leadership for the mess. Sikhs point at riots in Rawalpindi for the cause. Any way you look at it, more Muslims suffered than Hindus and Sikhs. The reasons are two-fold: First, Punjab was a Muslim majority province and they suffered proportionately more. A contributory factor was the award of Muslim-majority areas of Gurdaspur, Amritsar, and area around and along River Beas to India. Second, the caravans of Muslims muhajirs / refugees from UP traversed East Punjab (Haryan and Punjab combined). En-route they were ambushed by roving bands of armed men.
As far as Bihar is concerned, many Bihari Muslims migrated to East Pakistan and they were similarly harassed. Pertinent to note that there was no movement from East Pakistan to Bihar whatsoever by Hindus. These Biharis had fresh memories of 1945/46 riots. Lord Wavell having toured the area, had understood that it was impossible to keep peace. Gandhi Ji also visited and that is probably when he had a change of heart about partition. The standard practices of men being killed and women being abducted paled in comparison to children having been impaled onto trees. My friend the picture you saw may have its source anywhere, but it is very representative of the truth.
In my reading I have come across two instances of Hindu / Sikh refugee trains being targeted in West Punjab. Mind you this practice was not specific to West Punjab, a lot more happened on the other side. I will tell you the details in a later paragraph. In the first instance, a train was stopped before it entered India (from Kasur, I think) and it was looted and men were killed. There were a few soldiers of Baloch Regiment who were supposed to protect this train, but they did nothing. The young officer commanding was (the later General) Abdur-Rehman Akhtar. He himself belonged to East Punjab and his rationale for not forcing his soldiers to do their duty was that many of them had lost relatives themselves and were not prepared to face a hostile crowd to defend the refugee co-religionists of the people who had killed their families. This conduct was condemnable, but it was matched by the other side well enough when the non-Muslim soldiers accompanying as armed escorts often did not care and would not stop Sikhs from killing and kidnapping. My father's caravan suffered this until all the caravan determined to commit collective suicide and all lay on the road. An English Army Major saw this and sent dozen or less soldiers of Baluch Regiment who kept armed Sikhs at bay til the caravan reached Wagah.
I have come across negative portrayal of Baluch Regiment in writing by Indian writers etc... The above incident is probably the source of these claims.
The other event of targeting a train that I have read about in some detail (planning, execution, aftermath) happened on the Eminabad railway station, about 25 miles from Lahore. A refugee train was stopped, men were killed, Women were spared. The women of Eminabad came out in force at hearing of the on-going massacre, taunted and shamed their men-folk, took women and girls into their custody and took them into their homes.
On the other hand, many trains arriving at Lahore from India had been ambushed. One train arrived with not a living soul on it. A train compartment was especially bloody. It was littered full with Breasts of women that had been cut off. This particular compartment had been labelled as "Eid Gift for Muslims" - Musalmanon kai liyai Eid ka Tuhfa.
Many Muslim refugee camps had wells that had been poisoned by dumping sacks of soap. Any who drank from these died of dysentery, those who did not, died of thirst. My father's camp had something like this, in addition to Sikhs coming into camps and killing and kidnapping at will. The brave Awans who had initially been a part of the caravan split from the caravan after having crossed River Beas, because they could not contemplate being kept under guard like cattle. They walked and fought their way to Pakistan by themselves.
I have many other stories to relate, but this should suffice as sample of what that had happened during partition.
You may call it senseless, and you would be right. I call it inevitable, and that would be more correct.
You forgot to mention the Sikhs had all the weapons. They had rifles from the world wars and before that from the British East India company. The Sikhs would impale infants dropped at the train stations with their swords and let the infants slide down the sword as they raised it up in the air. My nani's younger brother had his tongue out by a Sikh. He was around ten years old. But both my nani and mama escaped. My nani's elder brother stayed back in Jalandar and slayed 12 sikhs while accompanying his father.
