AN INDIAN TRAGEDY.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10270, 13 February 1899, Page 5

AN INDIAN TRAGEDY.

United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. CALCUTTA, February 10. J In June, 1897, Lieutenant Ayerst, the 5 plague officer at Poonah, was shot dead in I the street, and Mr W. C. Rand - , the Poonah f plague commissioner, received wounds from r which he subsequently died. A native, s named Damodar Chapekar, confessed to the f murder and was sentenced' to death. Two ■ brothers, named Dravid, Brahmins, gave • evidence against Chapekar. These two men. have now been shot dead in the streets of Poonah. Damedar Chapedar fired at, and narrowly missed, a native official who was conducting tae enquiry, and boasted that,he murdered ■ Dravids. He mentioned Ranade, a Brahmin, as hie accomplice. Both were arrested. (The murder of Lieutenant Ayerst and of Mr Rand, the chief plague authority of Poona, took place during the Diamond Jubilee festivities in India, as they were leaving a reception given by the Governor of Bombay, on June 22nd, 1897. Mr Rand had bs&a. continually denounced previously ' by the native Press in articles, some of which . were of the most seditious character; and , after the murders a number of arrests were made of persons charged with inciting to disaffection).