A leader of the 'Razakars of Hyderabad'. A leader of the 'Razakars of Hyderabad', Qasim Rizvi blocked the state's accession into India after the partition (1947) against the wishes of the local population. He fought against the Indian forces during Operation Polo. In his speeches and publications in Hyderabad, once a princely state of British India before 1947, Qasim Rizvi advocated the state to join newly created Pakistan. He was a politically powerful and tried hard to defy the Indian government, and block the accession of Hyderabad into India. At the height of the crisis, Qasim Rizvi travelled to Delhi and had a stormy meeting with Indian leader Sardar Vallabbhai Patel. After the Operation Polo, Qasim Rizvi was placed under house arrest and tried under Indian laws on seditious activities and inciting communal violence. He was released in the 1950s, and later fled to Pakistan.