Bomb Outrage

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1060, 26 August 1930, Page 9

Bomb Outrage

LAWLESSNESS IN CALCUTTA Assailant Shot Dead VICIOUS FIGHTS IN INDIA PROVINCES United I\A.—By Telegraph—Copyright Received 0.45 a.m. DELHI, Monday. TWO bombs were thrown at the Commissioner of Police in a crowded thoroughfare at Calcutta. A shot was fired at one of the perpetrators, and a second one blew himself up. One of the assailants are dead, one wounded and the remaining two are in captivity.

The bombs were flung at a motorcar in which Sir Charles Tegart, the Commissioner, was driving in Dalhousie Square, the centre of the European business quarter, at 11 a.m. Sir Charles was not hurt, but his driver was wounded. The assailant, who was killed, apparently lost his life through the premature bursting of a bomb in his hand. Sir Charles leapt from the car and chased another of his assailants, who subsequently was arrested. He was carrying two more bombs. It is believed that there were four assailants. Dalhousie Square is the busiest shopping centre in the city. The four assailants were of the Bengali student class, and about 25 years old. One is dead, and one wounded, and may die, and the remaining two were arrested. The incident is causing great excitement among Europeans jnnd little business is doing. SHOT ASSAILANT DEAD It is reported in a British Official Wireless message that Sir Charles Tegart, leaping from the car, drew a revolyer and shot one of his assailants dead. Then he chased another of the assailants, who was captured by a police sergeant. Sir Charles Tegart, who is 49 years of age, has been in the Indian Police since 1901. CLASH WITH TRIBES A serious situation is reported to have arisen in the Betul district, Central Provinces. The police were attempting to ar rest Cajan, a member of a practically aboriginal tribe called the Gonds, for a breach of the forest laws. They found their man surrounded by several hundred Gonds. As several of the police were injured by the natives they fired, temporarily dispersing the Gonds, of whom one was killed.

It is reported that the Gonds are reassembling in large numbers, and

50 armed police have been dispatched from Nagpur to reinforce those on the scene. It is note worth that the activity of Congress agitators in the Central Provinces has taken the special form of encouraging breaches of the forest laws. THE FRONTIER POSITION In the weekly appreciation by the Government of India of the situation there, it is stated that a Jirga of two sections of the Utman Khel tribe interviewed the deputy-commissioner on August 16, and they undertook to commit no more offences against the Government, to refrain from joining any hostile Lashkar and to refuse passage to any hostile Lashkar of other tribes. In view of this jundertaking their II prisoners captured at Pallai were released. It is clear, however, that hopes are still entertained of raising lashkar to attack the Peshawar district by way oil Gandao, on the Kurram border. AGITATION SPREADS The agitation, however, has spread to ofcher tribes and on August 19 Ahmadzai Ghilzai collected a lashkar on the Peiwar Kotal, in the neighbourhood of Utsar and Bargawisar. Reconnaisance airplanes were heavily fired upon from these two points, and militia pickets in the Upper Kurram were fired on from Utsar. There has been less picketing, particularly in Calcutta, and the movement generally has much weakened. A good sign in several districts is the increased attendance at school and the boycott of educational institutions seems to be falling off. The situation in Bombay City is more stable so far as law and order is concerned, but economic conditions tend to deteriorate, and more mills have been closed down. . The record of improvement must be qualified in certain respects. 'The boycott of foreign goods is still effective in many towns, and picketing, althou" on the decline, is still practised to a considerable extent.