The MEO RISING 1947 Farman Aslam www.dunyakailm.com
villages of Hindus, Jats and Ahirs in the jurisdiction of Nuh, Sadr Gurgaon and Taoru police stations. By the evening of the 27th May a large area between Sohna and Hattin was completely out of control and as many as thirty villages were afire.
News now came in of an affair near Kosi, north-west of Muttra. On hearing that an armed party was making for Saomdhad, a combined patrol of the 6th Kumaon Regiment and the 4/14th Punjab Regiment was sent off in the early morning of the 4th June to get contact with it. On the way the troops learnt that the ‘enemy’ were making for Kotali Meo, a Muslim village, so switched off and soon got touch with them, to find that they consisted of about 1000 Jats with a leader mounted on an elephant. The patrols demanded their weapons, a demand that was peremptorily refused and an attempt to seize them was resisted. The soldiers at once opened fire, inflicting casualties and securing many of the arms they were after.
Meanwhile, with strong forces of Meos and Jats collecting about Saomdhad and Seoli, a battle was impending. Two platoons of the 6th Kumaon Rifles hastened out to investigate and prevent a clash. The Muslim village of Alipur was found burnt, its destruction being the cause of a violent Meo attack on the Hindu villages of Marauli and Palare. Here, sixteen corpses were found floating in the canals but our men reported that the belligerents had not used firearms. It was all close-quarter work.
A patrol on the 4th June passed through a string of villages from Hadari to Baraura and Banchamet, confiscating spears, a country-made gun, cartridges and powder, and disarming small bands of law-breakers. Kenpore, Nagla Meo and Nangaonuan were found burnt. Here our men counted and collected twenty-six dead.
The month passed with its daily incidents and hurried movements of soldiers to cork the flow of raiders from across the Jumna River into our territory. The rapidity with which troops had arrived on the ground had by the 4th June made our border reasonably secure. One incident late in June will illustrate the nature of the fighting on our borderland.
On the 26th June villagers about the Muslim village of Kadirpur were suddenly evacuated and Hindu refugees poured across to the Punjab bank of the Jumna. The 4/14th Punjab Regiment, suspicions aroused, at once sent a patrol over the border and posted a nightly picket at Kadirpur. At 4 a.m. on 28th June an armed mob of 4,000 all but surrounded Kadirpur, leaving only the river side of the village open. At the time a Naik 68 and six men were in the village. He went out and warned the crowd that if they attempted to attack the place his patrol would at once open fire in defence of its inhabitants. Thereupon, the mounted leaders of the mob exhorted their men to advance and attack, saying that this was only a bluff and that there were no troops in the village.
