Driven to Cover

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1050, 14 August 1930, Page 9

Driven to Cover

TRIBES FLEE TO THE HILLS

Reprisals in India

RAIDERS COWED BY ATRPLANE BOMBS v British Official Wireless Received 11.20 a.m. RUGBY, Wednesday. IN tlie Peshawar area British and Indian troops are continuing’ to drive back to 1 lie hills the Afridi tribesmen who penetrated to the plains. Numerous valleys and standing’ crops provide adequate cover for small bands who have, during their wanderings, cut the telegraph wires and sniped the outskirts of Peshawar.

The Afridis parties are being cleaned up. While retreating to the shelter of the hills they found the British troops in unexpected strength. Hitherto the British authorities have scrupulously observed the semi independence of the tribes involved, and no airplanes ever flew over Tirah. Now the country has been aerially surveyed and every village which sends its men to a raid is known. These villages are now being bombed as punishment. Twenty-four hours’ notice is invariably given to each village before the planes arrive, and the occupants go into the open fields while the machines destroy the defence towers and houses. News of this punishment has reached the Afridi raiders, and has hastened their return to the hills. As a precautionary measure. Air Force machines took the English women and children away from Parachimar, a few miles west of Peshawar. A daring party of Afridis penetrated close to the Peshawar cantonment yesterday and sniped for two hours at Dean’s Hotel, the staff headquarters and European residences. Indian troops gallantly resisted an

attempt, by the raiders to rush a huge military store containing thousands of tins of petrol. * They drove the Afridis hack with many casualties. Airmen, artillery and cavalry cooperated. Finally the Afridis were driven from their hiding places. PROWLING GANGS

LAWLESSNESS IN THE SIND FOLLOWS FLOODS Reed. 10.40 a.m. DELHI, Wed. The Government of Bombay is alleged to have received urgent telegrams from the Sind area regarding the alarming spread of a spirit of extreme lawlessness, which, following the floods, is beginning at Sukkur and extending outward. The root of the evil in the Sind is the utter inadequacy of the police force, against which the Sind authorities continually protested to Bombay. Huge gangs prowl around the Sind, taking full advantage of communal disturbances.