RUSSIAN PATTERN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26627, 25 November 1947, Page 5

RUSSIAN PATTERN

RAIDING TRIBESMEN’S RIFLES

FIGHTING IN KASHMIR Rec. 8 p.m. LONDON, Nov. 23. Eight hundred tribesmen from Southern Afghanistan who passed through Rawalpindi yesterday going towards Poonch, in Kashmir, carried the latest pattern of Russia rifles, says the Daily Telegraph’s correspondent at Rawalpindi. Pakistan Army intelligence officers seized one rifle and confirmed that it was a 1947 pattern. The Pakistan Government has sent an investigator to Gilgit to check reports that the independence movement there, though nominally part of the free Kashmir movement, is, in fact, backed by Russia. This action is a to Pakistan raising the Kashmir question at the United Nations as a menace to world peace. An Indian Defence Ministry com-, munique says that Indian troops met increased opposition which slowed down their advance towards Kotli Jammu, where a Kashmir garrison has been beseiged for 29 days. The communique adds that Indian army troops are consolidating their positions at Poonch after relieving the State force garrison. Two thousand tribesmen and 2500 Kashmiris have surrounded a brigade of Indian troops in Uri, 30 miles from Baramula.

Hindu refugees, in an attempt to occupy a house, started a chain of rumours in New Delhi that communal rioting had broken out. This led to the stabbing of eight Moslems, says the British United Press New Delhi correspondent. :t;The- authorities have imposed a 13-hour curfew on the affected area.

whose return from exile in Switzerland was demanded in a resolution approved by 16,000 members of the National Congress. Speakers representing Parliament, the Army of Resistance Movement and working classes decided to send a message of loyalty to King Leopold and also another message to Prince Charles, urging him to take the initiative in bringing the King back.—Brussels cablegram.