Former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shashtri atop a captured Pakistan Army Patton tank along with Maj Gen Rajinder Singh Sparrow (in turban) and Lt Gen PO Dunn shortly after the 1965 war ended. (Express file photo enhanced using AI).In the early hours of September 6, 1965, Indian Army troops stormed across the international border with Pakistan in Punjab and launched a direct attack threatening Lahore. Coupled with a similar attack on Sialkot, the aim was not to capture the two cities but to threaten them sufficiently to make Pakistan pull out its forces and reserves opposing Jammu and Kashmir and reduce the pressure on that front.It is not that Pakistan did not have plans of its own to strike deep into Indian Punjab, something it did a couple of days later in the Khemkaran sector with some success; however, the Indian attack on Lahore from three directions (Khemkaran-Kasur, Khalra-Barki, Wagah-Dograi) took Pakistan by surprise, and it hastened to put up adequate defence to stop Indian attacks.As the news of Indian attacks on Lahore and Sialkot spread in Pakistan, the crash and bang of artillery and tanks could be heard in the two cities; religious groups in the country invoked divine intervention, promising victory on the battlefield despite overwhelming odds.This chimera exists to this day in Pakistan, abetted by the Army’s propaganda. One such rumour documented at the time spoke about a saint of Lahore named ‘Chup Shah’ (silent shah). Apparently, the saint had never spoken before the war, but now he suddenly began roaming the streets of Lahore, shouting that Allah would work miracles and that “victory will be ours”.More such feverish rumours circulated as the war continued and a deep Indian Army foray threatened Sialkot. It was said that people from Sialkot had seen hundreds of white-clad horse riders holding swords. They were supposed to be shouting that they were going into battle.Also Read | Captured Pak Captains exposed Op Gibraltar: How India crushed 1965 infiltration in J-KUrdu newspapers dutifully published such material to bolster the flailing morale of the Pakistani masses. One letter in an Urdu daily said that on the day Lahore was attacked, two people from Madina in Saudi Arabia dreamt that the Holy Prophet was going on a horse that same night. When asked where he was headed, he is said to have replied that he was headed to Pakistan for jihad.Cooked-up stories were spread about Indian soldiers getting surprised on the battlefield after coming across armies of soldiers holding swords. “Light emanates from their swords,” captured Indian troops were alleged to have said in these make-believe accounts in Sialkot. Another fable circulating in Lahore pertained to the Khemkaran sector, where Indian prisoners were alleged to have said they got confused after seeing horse riders in red dresses.Story continues below this adIn similar tales, three older men were seen in Multan catching bombs dropped by Indian Air Force planes and throwing them away. A college principal’s brother, posted in Pakistan Air Force at Peshawar, testified that an IAF bomb landed on a petrol tank but did not burst due to a miracle.Another fanciful story attributed to Air Marshal K C Cariappa, who was shot down and taken prisoner during the war as a young pilot, said that he had come to destroy the bridge over the Ravi river, but saw six bridges instead of one when he flew overhead.Ultimately, none of these dreams and stories helped the Pakistan Army in the war and by the time the ceasefire was declared, the Indian Army was sitting pretty right outside Lahore and Sialkot. The villages that the Indian Army captured outside Lahore are now part of the sprawling metropolis where, ironically, the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) of the Pakistan Army is cutting plots for its officers.