[11] Involvement of Government of Pakistan in Pathan Incursion:

[11] Involvement of Government of Pakistan in Pathan Incursion:

Alastair Lamb, Incomplete Partition, Roxford 1997, pp.136-137

There remains one major question to answer. What part had the Government of Pakistan to play in this military venture into the state of Jammu and Kashmir? In a formal sense the Government as such took no part at all. The Governor-General, M.A.Jinnah, was kept ignorant of all details, though naturally he was aware that there was trouble of some sort brewing in Kashmir; and the Pakistan Cabinet took no minuted stance on this matter. There can be no doubt, however, that various individuals in Pakistan, both official and unofficial, did show an extremely active interest in what was afoot. We can probably divide these persons into three main categories.

First: there were those who had supported from atleast 12 September the formation of the Azad Kashmir Government. Some were indeed of great seniority in Pakistan administration, including the Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan. Their concern was not the day-to-day conduct of operations but rather the underlying necessity of keeping the Azad Kashmir movement afloat. In terms of organising supplies for Azad Kashmir the record suggests that these men achieved very little; their activity was largely symbolic.

Second: in the North-West Frontier Province and in the Rawalpindi District of the Punjab there were many officials both appointed and elected, from the Chief Minister of the North-West Frontier province downwards, who were aware of the growing connection between the tribal world of the North-West Frontier and Azad Kashmir. It cannot be denied that such men did very little indeed to discourage this relationship. Some of them went out of their way to promote it.

Third: there were many individual soldiers in the Pakistan Army who appreciated the importance of the Azad Kashmir movement and felt it their duty to help it. A number of regulars took leave, or became technically "deserters", to join the fray; but in most cases this was later in the story. A few, like Colonel Akbar Khan, took it upon themselves to assume senior staff responsibilities with the Azad Kashmiri forces. Subsequently, Akbar Khan under the pseudonym "General Tariq" was to take active command in the field, but not during the events under consideration here. Some Pakistani officers merely turned a blind eye when boxes of .303 ammunition mysteriously disappeared from the armouries; but again, such actions were to become more important later on. It is safe to say that there was very little regular Pakistan Army presence, direct or indirect, in Major Khurshid Anwar's column on the road to Uri between 22 and 24 October 1947.