In the book "Borders and Boundaries: Women in India's Partition" by Ritu Menon and Kamala Bhasin, the events in Sargodha and other parts of Punjab are painfully documented with the focus on violence against women and children which became the most tragic and shocking aspect of partition. The idea of "conquering women" by abducting and raping them became the central blood sport of the mob. The writers were unprepared to understand the depravity of what fellow human beings can do to each other. In one of the shocking stories, Charanjit Singh Bhatia, a Sikh patriarch killed his own daughters to save them from being raped.
"He had six daughters, all of them very good looking. He was well-to-do and also had very good relations with his Muslim neighbbors. They told him to give his daughters in marriage to their sons - that way, they would all then be related and family's safety assured. they could continue to live in the village wiithour fear. He kept listening to them and nodding, seeming to agree. That evening, he got all his family members together and decapitated each one of them with his talwar, killing 13 people in all. He then lit their pyre, climbed on to the roof of his house and cried out: "Barataan lai ao! Hun lai ao barataan apniyan! Merian theeyan lai jao, taiyaar ne vyah vastey" (Bring on the marriage parties! You can bring your grooms now. Take my daughters away, they are ready for their marriages!) and so saying he killed himself too."
In another account, Durga Rani, narrated the following events:
"In the villlages of Junu, Hindus threw their young daughters in to wells. dug trenches and buried them alive. Some were burnt to death, some were made to touch electric wires to prevent the mob from touching them. We heard of such happenings all the time after August 16. We heard all this.
The mob used to announce that they would take away our daughters. They would force their way into homes and pick up young girls and women. Ten or twenty of them would enter, tie up the menfolk and take the women. We saw many who had been raped and disfigured, their faces and breasts scarred, and then abandoned. They had tooth marks all over them. Many of them were so young - 18, 15, 14 years old - what remained of them now? Their "character" was now spoilt. One had been raped by ten or more men - her father burnt her, refused to take her back. There was one villlage, Makhtampura (sic), where all night they plundered and raped, they dragged away all the young girls who were fleeing in kafilas, No one could do anything - if they did, they would be killed. Mothers telling their daughters they were ruined, bemoaning their fate, saying it would have been better they hadn't been born..."