DACOIT DEFIES THE BRITISH ARMY

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12621, 4 December 1926, Page 11

DACOIT DEFIES THE BRITISH ARMY

Amazing Trial After a Career of Plunder and Lawlessness The story of a Baluchi dacoit, who successfully defied the British Army and continued his campaign of murder and plunder until he was promised a trial by the Jirgah or tribal court, is revealed in this article.

Miran taukhalli SIRKHALI JAMALI, the noted Baluchi dacoit, in ‘surrendering himself to the police at the end of last March, ended a career of daring crime which has few parallels even in the stormy history of the Indian hill districts. Sentenced now to twenty years’ imprisonment. Miran Jamali will have leisure to reflect on his record of frightfufness. • c • • Unrivalled in fiendish violence, even in the annals of the fierce border tribes, Miran Jamali has always been a law to himself,* in which there was no sense of the sacredness of human life, nor any fear of God or man. Of medium height, Miran was not particularly strong, nor had he anything striking about his features, except for the brilliant light in his eyes when he told of his crimes before the tribal court which tried him. * * * * “All the police are cowards,” he stated boldly to his judges. “If tou want proof, release me and then beckon your five hundred policemen. Let me see if 'any one of them dares to approach me, even here—and what could they do against ine in the hills?” Originally, Miran was the head man of a village named Lohi, in the Las Bela State on the border of the Karachi district and Baluchistan. Twenty years ago he began his career as a dacoit. Swooping, down from the hills to the plain beneath, with a gang of crimestained followers, he would murder and loot at pleasure, and then make an escape back to the hills. A few ■'•oars later he joined the police lew of the State of Las Bela, and .stuck to it

for awhile. Still later, he connected himself with tho Khilafat movement and became fervently religious. The Prime Minister of Las Bela presented Miran with a cloth of honour, on condition that he would never cause tiouble again in the State. Miran promised, and kept his word, for he transferred his activities to the plains of British India instead.

4 Between July of 1922 and February of 1925 he committed six dacoities, burnt two railway stations, looted two , police stations, and totally destroyed] three villages by fire. In 1925 liis brother was captured by the police, and since then, out of revenge pure and simple, ho set himself to destroy every bit of Government property on which he could lay his hands. Before attacking a railway station, he used to take the precaution of cutting all the telegraph wires. Then, having killed the station staff in cold blood, he set fire to the station and destroyed it. A special police force, under Mr Tanner, Superintendent of Police, aided by strong military detachments, was assigned the task of capturing Miran Jamali. For months they hunted him in the rugged hills and valleys of the Indian border country, where, without food, without even water at times, and hindered at every turn by the people of the district, thev rushed from place to place in efforts at locating their qunrrv.

At the end of last December, after an exhausting march of over twenty miles, the pnrtv came to a bare plateau at nightfall, absolutely exhausted. Miran seized the opportunity to attack

them, aud being unprepared, they were forced to scatter ior shelter. By the next day Miran had migrated from the neighbourhood, and with spies on every hilltop he had no difficulty in making his escape. After all endeavours had tailed, a message was sent to this king of dacoits bidding him surrender, aud promising that ho should have trial by the Jirgah or tribal court, and not by a British court, if he gave himself up* Miran came near the British lines and perched himself ou a hill while carrying on negotiations. For thirteen days he negotiated. So strongly was he placed on the hill that it was not attacked, as the British commander on the spot realised that even a battalion could only take the place with heavy loss. Then Miran surrendered himself up for trial. It was one of the most amazing trials ever held in India. Miran. suave and perfectly collected, cracked jokes with the presiding judge, snubbed the policemen, and owned to crimes hairraising horror as if they were nothing at all. He was asked to explain how he came to fire on the police when they had surrounded him on the hill. “Sir,” he answered, “some did surround us on the lull, but we do not know who they were. We fired into the air to frighten them, in our own defence. When they ran away we retired into the bosom of the mountains. “Wo did not intentionallv shoot at Mr Tanner, the Superintendent of Police, because we never thought a white man would he in the mob at tho foot of the hill. We were too far up to distinguish him.”