JOURNEY IN INDIAN ‘DEATH TRAIN’

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 August 1947, Page 5

JOURNEY IN INDIAN ‘DEATH TRAIN’

(Rec. 11.25 a.m.) LONDON, August 29. The British United Press Lahore correspondent in a delayed dispatch, described a journey in a “death train” travelling from Delhi to Lahore and crowded with refugees. A few minutes after the train left Maur, 150 miles north of Delhi, the brakes were applied, and scores of bearded Sikhs carrying lances tipped with razor-sharp blades, swarmed on the train. In the half-light of dawn they ran from door to door of the compartments seeking Moslems. Blood - maddened Sikhs The correspondent watched a dozen • z Sikhs prize open the door of a neighbouring compartment. A young Moslem inside tried desperately to hold the door shut. Spears beat him, slashing his stomach and thighs as the Sikhs fought fiercely for the “privilege” of gutting him. The Sikhs took no notice of the correspondent, but laughed and jeered as they speared the Moslem. Another group of blood-maddened Sikhs battered at the door of a compartment in which were two American correspondents, but a couple of belated warning shots from the train’s police guard caused the Sikhs to jump off the train and hide behind the bushes and sand dunes beside the line. There was a small burst of harmless rifle Are from the guards and the train started again. When the train reached Bhatinda half an hour later, .Captain Peter Douglas, of Surrey, whose Gurkha troops were keeping order, told the correspondent that things were getting worse. Captain Douglas said the Moslems attacked one train carrying Hindu refugees five times on one night between Peshawar and Lahore. Captain Douglas shepherded 150 wounded Moslems aboard the correspondent’s train. Sikhs had attacked them as they fled from villages four days earlier, since when they had not eaten. Blood from their wounds still marked their garments. One-third of them had to be carried on to the train. One woman died as she awaited her turn.' , Fleeing For Their Lives At Ferozepore, less than 10 miles from the Pakistan border, hundreds of Moslem refugees jammed into the compartments, climbed on to the roof or hung to the sid,es. The Rev. Charles Moffatt, a missionary, told the correspondent that he saw at least 150 bodies, nearly all Moslems, lying in Ferozepore’s streets. One woman on the train was the sole survivor.of a village which the Sikhs attacked. A blow meant to behead her had cut her baby in her arms in half. Less than five miles inside the Pakistan border, the correspondent saw many Sikh bodies bearing similar stab wounds, but inflicted by Moslems.

Danger of Epidemics

The Indian Health Minister, following a tour of Pakistan and India, expressed fear of widespread epidemics among the countless thousands of refugees displaced from their homes. He added that 'there was a danger that disease would contribute heavily to the rioting death roll. The Indian and Pakistan Joint Defence Council at a meeting to discuss the riots in the Punjab, decided to abolish the Punjab Boundary Force, which was set up a month ago to maintain order in the disputed*,Punjab districts. \ The meeting decided that India and

Pakistan would be responsible for the : maintenance of law and order in their own territories. 'Viscount Mountbatten, who presided, left Simla immediately after the meeting.