UGLY RIOTS IN BOMBAY

Southland Times, Issue 24820, 12 August 1942, Page 5

UGLY RIOTS IN BOMBAY

TROOPS CALLED OUT (Rec. T.SO p.m.) LONDON, Aug. 10. Latest reports indicate that Bombay remains the Indian storm centre. The city’s death-roll yesterday and today is estimated at 15. More than 60 persons were taken to hospital today, mostly with bullet wounds. After an ugly day the disturbances became more serious late in the evening and the police were again forced to open fire at several places. Troops were called out at Bombay, New Delhi and Lucknow. Bombay rail traffic was dislocated during attacks on railway stations, in which a large number of rioters is believed to have been wounded. All the markets are closed and buses and trams are not operating on some routes. The police are using revolvers, smoke bombs, tear-gas and lathis (iron-tipped lengths of bamboo) to disperse the crowds. An official communique issued in Bombay says that Sunday’s riots resulted in 11 persons being killed and 169 injured, including 91 policemen injured. Twenty-seven members of the public were injured in disturbances on Monday, but the number of the dead and the police casualties is not available. The communique adds that the police frustrated attempts to set fire to the gasworks and also to the Central India Railway Station in Bombay. Three police stations were set on fire and two of them were gutted. MOB VIOLENCE The communique states that the police and the troops fired on rioting mobs in the city about 10 times up to 4 p.m. Numerous instances of mob violence occurred.

Press reports state that the police in the Dadar area of Bombay this morning were forced to fire on a large and violent crowd which refused to dispense. In this and later firing 11 persons were wounded. Demonstrators burned a Government grain shop in the Kalbadovi area and the stoning of suburban trains is reported from the Dadar area.

The interruption of work has now spread to 18 mills. The situation worsened on Monday afternoon in northern Bombay, where more trains were stoned, telegraph wires were cut, street lamps were smashed and . the Post Office was attacked. The drivers abandoned a number of buses which were badly damaged. Twenty-five buses were abandoned in one street. The curfew has been imposed on all North Bombay. The Associated Press New Delhi correspondent reports that shops, mills, and schools in New Delhi have been closed all day, but the vital services were not interrupted. Food shops are open. The situation appears under control. A large force of Indian and British troops paraded through the old part of the city. The demonstrators were in an uglier mood than yesterday and forced the closure of the few shops remaining open, but did not clash with the police. The markets in Karachi are closed and students are not attending colleges. In Poona the police, after fruitless baton charges, fired on a crowd, mostly students, trying to demonstrate near Parasurambhau College. Poona’s schools and colleges are closed. The police in Lucknow fired on a crowd of university students who, after organizing a strike, attempted to form a procession, despite the police ban. The police first charged the crowd with lathis. The students began stoning, whereupon the police fired a voljey and arrested five men and eight women students. Police and soldiers are now guarding the' university. HINDU ATTITUDE Mr Savakar, president of the Hindu Mahasabha, the orthodox Hindu organization, called on all Hindus not to extend active support to the Congress mass civil disobedience resolution, also not to take up a hostile attitude to Congress action pending a decision by a meeting of the Mahasabha Working Committee on August 29. He warned the Government that the only effective way to appease Indian discontent was an unequivocal declaration by Parliament granting India the status of completely free and equal partnership in the Indo-British Commonwealth. “This,” he said, “should be immediately implemented by investing India with actual political power.” The Associated Press Bombay correspondent reports that bands of Hindus this morning threw stones against Moslem shops in the trouble areas. However, the podice, apart from this single demonstration, reported no other communal activities. The correspondent says the police expect the rioting to die down within a couple of days, unless Hindus and Moslems clash, in which case bloodshed is likely to continue all summer.

At New Delhi the police used barbedwire to prevent the mobs proceeding to the Imperial Secretariat. This measure was only partially successful, and the police had eventually to wield their lathis to induce the crowds to disperse.

MORE BRITISH OFFERS NOT LIKELY

LONDON, August 10. It seems unlikely that the British Government will make further proposals as it believes that the Cripps Mission was not wasted and that the mass of responsible Indians will accept that offer eventually. The decision of the Government of India to imprison Mr Gandhi is generally approved throughout Britain, although there is equal regret that such a measure should be necessary.

The weekly newspaper, The Economist, commenting before Mr Gandhi’s arrest, said: “Mr Gandhi and Pandit Nehru see in the present state of India and of the world a chance to force freedom on India at whatever risk. This is blackmail—from the highest motives, perhaps, but blackmail none the less. It is plain now that the Cripps Mission offered the only possible way out of the Indian impasse. It is plain also. that the main Indian parties are neither willing nor able to take that way.” With the main exception of The Daily Herald, the English newspapers generally endorse Mr Gandhi’s imprisonment. The Daily Herald says that his arrest will make a martyr of Mr Gandhi. It believes that he should not have been locked up until later when such action might have become an unavoidable necessity.