MOHAMMEDANS INVOLVED

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 583, 8 February 1929, Page 9

MOHAMMEDANS INVOLVED

COMMUNAL RIOTS MAY FOLLOW

DISTURBANCES IN INDIA (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) (United Service) DELHI, Thursday. The disturbances at Bombay threaten to develop into communal riots owing to Mohammedan sympathy with the Fathans. Five more deaths occurred there yesterday, making the total casualties as a result of the rioting 24 killed and 155 injured Troops fired on Moslem mobs, three being killed and live seriously injured. * Alarming reports of the desecration °f temples are being spread. At pres“le Fathans and their sympathisers are taking the initiative. LABOUR HELPING POLICE In spite of the appeal made by Goone binha, the president of the Ceylon Labour Union, every constable who was seen on the streets in the Maradana area of Colombo was stoned or assaulted. In consequence the police authorities withdrew all the Ceylonese policemen from the streets in that part of the town. Later in the day, however, an arrangement was reached with the Labour Union, which agreed to allow its members to form volunteer labour corps to assist the authorities in maintaining order and directing the traffic. These men discarded the red shirts they usually wear and donned khaki shirts and black shorts. The unprecedented sight was then witnessed of labour volunteers undertaking the work of the police, patrolling the thoroughfares and acting as points duty men at a few important junctions. Their signals were somewhat unorthodox, but the traffic responded well, and there was not a single accident.