Riots At Cricket Test Venue

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32099, 22 September 1969, Page 1

Riots At Cricket Test Venue

(From K. T. BRHTENDEN. N.Z.P.A. special correspondent) BOMBAY, September 21. In view of the deterioration in the situation at Ahmedabad, the advisability of the New Zealand cricket team travelling there tomorrow is now being considered by the team management.

Urgent talks will be held by the team manager (Mr G. C, Burgess), the New Zealand High Commissioner in India (Mr B. Lendrum) and Indian officials.

An official of the Indian Board of Cricket Control assured the touring New Zealand cricketers that rioting which broke out in Ahmedabad last night would not interfere with the first test there this week, according to A.A.P.-Reuter. Mr Burgess received an assurance after a board official had got in touch with

cricket authorities in Ahmedebad that the trouble was minor and localised and would not stop the test proceeding. The New Zealanders are due to fly to Ahmedabad on Monday afternoon' and the test wilt begin on Wednesday. Mobs Fired On Police fired on Hindu and Moslem mobs three times today as the fourth day of religious clashes shattered the peace of the western Indian textile city. Thirty-eight persons have died so far in the rioting, according to latest hospital figures. But unofficial counts put the number as high as 50.

Troops were ordered to move in today as looting, stabbings and arson continued. Suiper fire whined through the city streets. So far 40 persons have been taken to hospital with bullet wounds and four have died. The riots began last Thursday when Hindu devotees drove temple cows through a Moslem area of the town. Police were ordered to shoot looters and incendiarists on sight as mobs roamed the streets ransacking and setting fire to shops and houses.

Curfew Extended The Gujarat State Government also announced it had called in the Army to help police maintain law and order and extended a curfew previously only in force in the worst affected areas to cover the entire city and some suburbs. In New Delhi, the Prime Minister (Mrs Gandhi) issued an appeal to the people of Gujarat to stop the clashes. “It is specially deplorable that they should occur so close to the birth centenary (on October 2) of Mahatma Gandhi, the supreme exponent of communal harmony,” she said. Border security forces and steel-helmeted reserve police

have already : arrived in Ahmedabad to help quell the violence. But trouble is reported to be spreading to areas round the Gujarat State capital. AU trains leaving Ahmedabad were provided with armed guards today after a mob attack on six trains yesterday in which three persons were killed. Shops and businesses remained closed antf city'transport was off the streets as Ahmedabad remained under curfew for the second day.