Hyderabad, Jan. 26 -- As many as 50,000 Muslims were killed and nearly 100,000 migrated to other parts of the world after the 1948 police action in Hyderabad, which led to its annexation to India, claimed author and historian Afsar Mohammad, adding that the violence affected the pluralistic nature of the region.

Speaking at Day 2 of the Hyderabad Literary Festival on Sunday, January 25, in a panel discussion titled "Hyderabad, September 1948," along with writer Zeenath Khan, Mohammad said that much of what happened in the dreadful five days of violence from September 13 to 17, 1948, is lost in history.

Mohammad, an internationally acclaimed and award-winning South Asian scholar working on Hindu-Muslim interactions in India and a faculty...