FEAR OF RIOTS IN INDIA

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25253, 4 August 1947, Page 7

FEAR OF RIOTS IN INDIA

CELEBRATIONS OF INDEPENDENCE REPORTS OF COMMUNAL INCIDENTS (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) LONDON, August 2. Bengal appears to be the only province in the eastern zone of India where no plans have yet been indicated for celebrating August 15. the date for the granting of Indian independence, and the general inference is that the authorities are worried that jubilations might cause further communal blodshed, says the Calcutta correspondent of “The Times.” This fear applies particularly to Calcutta, where controversy about its future and rival claims for it by the Hindus and the Moslems have been generating much heat. In the other three eastern Indian provinces of Assam, Bihar and Orrissa, the celebrations will follow the general pattern elsewhere, namely a public holiday, an amnesty for some prisoners, the hoisting of the national flag, night illuminations, feeding the poor and ceremonial parades. A Bombay Government communique says that three persons were killed and 70 others injured when a time bomb exploded in a crowded cinema in the Moslem area of Bombay. Renewed communal fighting followed the explosion. In the fighting, one person was stabbed to death and four others injured. According to one report, the bomb was thrown from the gallery of the cinema into the stalls. From New Delhi, it is reported that persons armed with rifles, guns and swords attacked the village of Ghaini Brahaman, on the outskirts of Amritsar and killed 13 persons and injured 15 others.