ABDUCTION INSPIRES REVOLT

Evening Star, Issue 22627, 20 April 1937, Page 6

ABDUCTION INSPIRES REVOLT

THE WAZIRiSTAN TROUBLE HUNDU GIRL AND MOHAMMEDAN BOY t V [PeS United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, April 19. ’ The revolt which has been in progress in North Waziristan, India, since last year, and has been referred to in recent cable news, arose through the abduction of a Hindu girl by a Mohammedan boy. stated Colonel G. B. Howell, of Indian Army Headquarters, Bombay, who arrived from Sydney today. He explained that the revolt was inspired by the Fakir of Ipi. A Mohammedan boy, Colonel Howell said, ran away with a Hindu girl. The mother of the girl had the boy _ arrested and charged with abduction. After the trial the court ordered the girl to be returned to her An agitation was set up by the Fakir of Ipi, who claimed that the decision of the court was an attack upon the tenors of Mohammedanism, but for about six months no one took much notice of him. Considerable interest . was suddenly taken in his agitation, and ho secured many followers in North Waziristan. Steps were taken to check his activities, and, although he was not captured, his agitation was temporarily silenced. -Recently, Colonel Howell continued, the revolt broke out again, British troops being attacked. The fakir lived in a cave where Royal Air Force aeroplanes could not get at him owing to the nature of the country, which wa» more scrub-covered than most of ..the frontier hills. Expeditions against the fakir and his fanatical were difficult and dangerous, and a mixture of hill warfare and jungle lighting tactics had to be employed. ■