JAPAN & INDIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 September 1942, Page 4

JAPAN & INDIA

ATTEMPTS TO CRIPPLE WAR PRODUCTION BOMBING MAY BE TRIED NEXT. INVASION THOUGHT LESS LIKELY LONDON, September 21. “The indications are that the Japanese have temporarily abandoned the hope of fomenting fresh internal trouble in India,” says the New Delhi correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph.” “This fact, combined with the increasing enemy reconnaissance over Bengal and Assam, may mean that the Japanese have decided to use direct action in an attempt to cripple India’s war production. Having failed to achieve the object by strikes the Japanese may now be preparing to scare the workers away by bombing. “The possibility that the. reconnaissance is a preliminary to invasion is not supported by anj' unusual troop concentrations. Japan is probably forced to remain on the defensive on the Burma front, but undoubtedly she is disturbed by watching the Allies’ growing potentialities in men and material in India, and urgently needs to do something to check the British preparations.”

GANDHI’S HOPES REPORTED LETTER TO PEOPLE OF JAPAN. QUOTED IN AXIS BROADCASTS. LONDON, September 22. The Berlin radio today quoted a letter from Gandhi to the Japanese people before his arrest, in which it was declared, he expressed the hope _ that Japan would avoid attacking India as the British might be willing to give the Indians home rule. The Rome radio, quoting a Tokro dispatch, says that Gandhi declared he had no doubt that if Japan really desired unity in India she would not interfere if the British were forced to abandon the country. A Buddhist priest, the radio said, took the letter to Japan. RIOT CASUALTIES DETAILS OF KILLED AND WOUNDED. (Received This Day, 11.10 a.m.) NEW YORK, September 22. Sir Mohammed Usman, who is leader of the Council of State, told the Legislative Assembly that the latest casualty figures since the outbreak of disturbances were: —Killed by police, 390; wounded, 1,060; killed by troops, 331; wounded, 159. Eleven policemen and 32 soldiers were killed. Forty trains were derailed, in which six persons were killed and 72 injured.