INDIAN CRIME.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18343, 28 March 1925, Page 13

INDIAN CRIME.

NAUTCH GIRL'S AMOURS. SEQUEL IN COURT. (fir CABLE—PBESS ASSOCIATION— COPXRIOHX.) (AT7STBALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATIOX.) DELHI, March 26. • The preliminary hearing of the case of Mumtaz Begum has commenced in Bombay. Nino officers of tho police and State troops of Indore, also the adjutantgeneral, are charged with ■ attempting to kidnap her, and with .murdering her lover, Bajla. Mumtaz gave evidence that she was 22 years of age, and was brought up as a singing girl. She went to Indore at the request of the Maharajah, and was his mistress' for several yeara. She accompanied him to 15gland. After the birth and death of her daughter eho left the Maharajah and lived in various places, where she was constantly followed by his spies, who urged her to return. Mumtaz recapitulated the details of tho attempts to kidnap her and the murder of Bajla. [At the inquest on Abdul Kaderba who was fatally shot in connexion with the case of the girl Mumtaz Begum, or Princess, the jury found that he died of revolver shote fired by more than five persons, who entered into a conspiracy, and of whom Shafi Armed, who ib .under arrest, was one. The gang attacked the motoT-car in which the deceased was driving with Mumtaz and an Indian Christian named Mathews. The two last-named were wounded. v'The attair occurred in a fashionable quarter of Bombay in January. A gang- of armed men attacked a motor-car with revolvers and knives, apparently witu the object of abducting a young Mohammedan girl, who was accompanied by a Mohammedan citizen of Bombay, Abdul Kaderba Bajla and tho Indian Christian named Mathews. '•. rescue was effected by four British officer 5, one of whom was Lieut. Frank Batiey, an old Christ's College boy, and grandson of Mr E. G. Chegwin, Becfieubaiu. It was subsequently revealed that the girl was the centre of a conspiracy in the Court of the Maharajah yf Indore. It is reported that while the girl was in the keeping of the Maharajah of Indore she carried on an intrigue with an officer of the latter's household, and was obliged to flee. Detectives tracked the couple to Bombay, and the attack followed. A remarkable feature of the case is that the'girl had asfced a magistrate for protection against her own mother, who travel;; with an sinned guard to visit her at the hospital.]