On August 14, 1947 Mohammed Ali Jinnah was to head a triumphant procession starting from Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly and which was to pass through the streets of Karachi.

In the surcharged and tension filled atmosphere Savage the C.I.D. officer informed the meeting attended by Mountbatten, Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Liaqat Ali Khan that there was real danger to the life of Jinnah when he was riding the procession.

At this the League leaders demanded immediate arrest of Master Tara Singh and other Sikh leaders. Mountbatten stubbornly refused to oblige as the Sikh leaders were at that time in the Golden Temple.

Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre in their work Freedom at Midnight (p.247) reminisce about the incident thus,

"The face of the man they wanted to murder whitened at Savage’s words. Beside him, Liaquat Ali Khan excitedly demanded that Mountbatten arrest the entire Sikh leadership. Stunned, the Viceroy wondered what to do…………Turning to the young C.I.D. officer, he said: "Suppose I ask the governor to arrest the Sikh leaders?" Savage thought, I’ll be bloody scared if you do. They were, he knew, isolated in Amritsar’s Golden Temple. No Sikh or Hindu police would accept an order to go in after them, and to send in Moslem police was unthinkable……….. Mountbatten pondered a moment. Then he announced that he would ask for a joint recommendation on what to do from the Punjab’s Governor Sir Van Jenkins and the two men designated to govern its Indian and Pakistan halves after August 15. Liaquat Ali Khan half rose from his chair at Mountbatten’s words. "You want to murder the Quaid-e-Azam!" he protested…….."If that’s really the way you feel about it, I’ll go along in the same car and get murdered with him," Mountbatten replied, "but I’m not going to throw the leaders of six million Sikhs into jail without the agreement of those governors."

Had this leaf of history been amplified, another 'if' would have been added to the modern history of India and the Sikhs.