REIGN OF TERROR AND DESTRUCTION AS RIOTS SPREAD

Chronicle (Levin), 15 August 1947, Page 5

REIGN OF TERROR AND DESTRUCTION AS RIOTS SPREAD

(N.Z.P.A.—

-Reuter,

, Copyright)

Received Friday, 10 a.m. . i NEW DELHI, Aug. 14. It is unofficially estimated. that the latest outbreak of rioting in the Punjab, which is the worst in five months, has taken a toll of 153 dead and 136 wounded. It has fanned out into the east and west sections of the province, which fall respectively into the Indian and Pakistan Dominions.

The joint defence command has thrown additional troops into the disturbed areas and it is expected that the two full brigades now operating will be reinforced today by a third. * Train travel has become unsafe in many places owing to bullet, stone and knife attacks. In Lahore some persons have managed to board trains for Delhi only after a six days' wait in _ an overcrowded railway station. Fathers had abandoned their families and mothers had been torn from their children in the mad scramble to get a train for any place away from the scenes of horror and destruction. They are mainly Hindus and Sikhs. Rioting has almost paralysed the local daily administration in Lahore and other places. Fire brigades today worked under a tremendous handicap as they tried unsuccessfully to reach the scene of Lahore fires as buildings collapsed in flames into the roadways. Twenty-three shops are on fire in the rich shopping centre of Anarkali, outside the walled city, which previously had no signs of disorders. Five Sikh temples are on fire elsewhere in Lahore. Tension is acute in Bengal, which is also to be divided between India

and Pakistan, but the disorders are , on a far smaller scale than in the 'Punjab.