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Personal memories
When I was young I used to hear a story of a beast called as Mum, which was supposedly present in mountains around Quetta. It used to live in a cave at Kohe Murdar. It was told that Mum was of some kind of mix breed. It’s face was woman like meanwhile remaining body of a lion. As per story the mum used to pick the random people especially males and then she kept them in her cave and made the captive incapable to walk by licking their feet. Later on she used to eat their flesh. According to version came to me one British Major killed the beast and his grave along with the beast is in Gora Kabristan Quetta.
When I visited my uncle in 1993 I requested him that I want to see the grave of Mum along with sculpture. When went to the grave yard the undertaker showed the sculpture of Mum locked in the room as it was stoned by people and was broken. An interesting thing which I still remember was a gunshot whole being depicted on the sculpture. The undertaker told that it was the point where the Mum was shot by the British officer whose grave along with mum was claimed to be present there. Recently have read on net that one retired Military officer claimed that he visited the cave on Kohe Murdar.
In literature
Mr Dr Raheel Ahmed Siddiqui has quoted Mum story in these words.
“For long, residents of Quetta valley feared the dreaded ‘Mum’. In the days of the Raj, during the winters, children were ushered inside the houses and were asked to lock the doors properly after sunset. As a young girl in 1950s, my mother remembers that the streets of Quetta would go deserted in winters. Ami describes the Mum as a black hairy creature of the mountain that prowled the streets at night in search of ‘naughty children’.
As the myth goes, it would knock at the door and carry the naughty children away.
Another source however relates Mum to be a she-creature that would take away young men and copulate with them in a den. The offspring would always be a female Mum. In the late 1970s in Quetta valley there were a few reported night attacks in the isolated huts. Terror struck the city and newspapers ran stories of the return of the ‘Mum of the Raj’.’’
Sunday Magazine Feature By Muhammad Adil Mulki
“No one could have imagined that an honorary emblem awarded in Egypt would one day intersect with an urban legend in Quetta and create a mystical creature that would become our very own local “monster under the bed”.
many of today’s British Regiments and batteries trace their lineage to the ones that fought in Egypt that fateful season and still carry the Sphinx either as a battle honour or a title, in some form. Here’s where it starts to get intresting…
Russian and the British empires had their eyes set on Afghanistan. More and more British regiments were being allocated to the Anglo-Afghan wars, among them the elite soldiers who had beaten ol’ Boney back in Egypt. They marched proudly into Afghanistan carrying the Sphinx insignia, but sadly for them, this was no Egypt. The Anglo-Afghan wars proved to be very costly for the British and their men were being slaughtered by the hundreds. Some of the dead from Afghanistan were eventually brought to Quetta for burial and a memorial was erected to honour them. And what else to guard the monument, than the insignia of their parent regiment — a relic of their past glory to crown their fall. The Sphinx! With the construction of this stone lion with the head of a human, the locals could finally put a face to their hitherto faceless terror. The Egyptian sphinx was now the Baloch Mum.
Interestingly, the legend and the statue jelled together very well. Legend had it that the Quetta Mum was a female of the variety that had been left behind when others of her species moved on due to increasing human encroachments.
It was said that she came to life during the nights and hunted for prey, which she used to take up to a cave on the Murdar Ghar peak in the hills behind the cantonment area. This fit perfectly with the fact that the graveyard sphinx sat as still as, well, a statue during the day. Who knew what it got up to during the night? Such was it’s notoriety that even in post-partition Quetta, much of the local population avoided passing alone at night along the Baleli Road where the “Gora” qabrastan (Christian Cemetery) is situated.
However, it was this very notoriety that spelled its unfortunate demise. In the 1990s, the statue was smashed during a protest against the destruction of the Babri Masjid.’’
Wo Kiya Hai Program Express News dated 13 November 2016
The program clearly points out an animal called Chukbar which is similar to Mum and supposedly present in Ormara far area.
Summing Up
My family used to live in Gilgit when I was hardly 5-6 Years old at that time there were stories that mysterious beasts or creatures are present there in area. Even some mysterious events happened with my family told again and again by them as I was very young and apart from some random flash backs cannot recall anything. However read that a cruel King who was almost a beast used to have a palace in mountains there and still Bunji people burn fire on mountains in order to keep him away till now. I personally believe that such beasts used to be present in mountain areas of Pakistan and perhaps we may get credible evidence apart from individual narrative if any conscious research work is done in our country .
References
The legend of Mum by Dr Raheal Ahmad Siddiqui (https://jang.com.pk/thenews/aug2011-weekly/nos-07-08-2011/foo.htm#2)
THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE > PAKISTAN > BALOCHISTAN
‘Mum’my dearest!Sunday Magazine Feature
By Muhammad Adil Mulki
https://www.booksie.com/posting/saleem-akhtar-malik/legend-of-the-mumh-79888#
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