Tension In The Punjab Mounting: Slaughter Of Refugees Continues

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 September 1947, Page 7

Tension In The Punjab Mounting: Slaughter Of Refugees Continues

(Recd. 12.25 p.rnJ NEW DELHI, Sept. 24. The Governor-General of India, Viscount Mountbatten, tonight presided over an urgent meeting of the. emergency committee *of the Indian Cabinet to discuss the serious situation caused by the resumption of attacks on refugee trains in the Punjab. The Cabinet is awaiting firsthand reports from the Commander-in-Chief of India, General Sir Rob Lockhart, who is touring the areas. A military spokesman said that tension in the Punjab is mounting. Serious attacks on refugee trains and convoys have caused heavy casualties. All seven trams which have left Lahore since September 18 have been attacked.

The Western Punjab Cabinet held a special meeting when reports were received today of what appears to be the worst massacre of refugees from the riot areas so far. A high official in touch with the Cabinet said a refugee train from New Delhi, which was also carrying many Pakistan Government personnel, was attacked near Amritsar on the night of September 22. Only 100 escaped uninjured from the train, which is believed to have carried several thousand passengers. The Hindu escorting troops would not fire on the attackers. The British officer, who was in command, fired until his ammunition was exhausted, when he was killed. The official added that it was not clear whether the escort troops or attackers killed the officer. The uninjured passengers and 400 wounded reached a refugee camp near Lahore.

Horrible Massacre The Pakistan Government has stopped all refugee trains between East* and West Punjab following the attack on the refugee train near Amritsar. Six hundred survivors from the train reached Lahore today. Unconfirmed reports said that 1200 were dead and 400 wounded. Survivors said the killing went on for three hours. Some of the less seriously wounded said they escaped only by being hidden under the bodies of the dead and dying passengers. They beat off the first attack at Beas, about 30 miles east of Amritsar. Later, at Amritsar, a train carrying Sikh troops stopped a short distance from the refugee train. The Sikh troops and a crowd of armed Sikhs opened fire on both sides of the refugee train.

Survivors said the escorting troops on the train only fired over the heads of the attackers. The British officer commanding the escort fired a machine-gun until he was shot after a three-hour attack in which guns, swords and spears were used. Looting began. Unprecedented Migration The mass migration in the Punjab has reached a scale unprecedented in history, says the Times correspondent. It is reasonable to estimate that at least 4,000,000 people are on the move. Throughout the North-west Frontier Province, West and East Punjab and the western part of the United Provinces, minority communities live in a state of insecurity, often amounting to panic. Whatever official statements may say of the attempts to create confidence and restore peace, it is plain that these do not exist over vast areas inhabited by perhaps 10,000,000 people, whose main preoccupation is to rid themselves at all costs of the potential fifth-column consisting of persons of opposing faiths.

The Pakistan Government has sent an army of reinforcements to the Lahore area to help the Western Punjab authorities to handle refugees. The Western Punjab Government has forbidden all refugee convoys to leave the Sikh area of Western Punjab for Eastern Punjab. Evacuee and Pakistan special trains from Delhi to Lahore have also been stopped. “Barbarous Tragedy”

In New Delhi today the India Congress Working Committee condemned communal rioting as a “barbarous tragedy.” It assured the minorities in India that their rights would be protected. The committee stated that the Congress, while agreeing to the division of the country, never accepted the two-nation theory which the Moslems advocated. “India is a land of many religions and many races, and must remain so. India can fulfil her destiny only as a democratic State where all enjoy full rights. All facilities will be provided for those wishing to emigrate from India.”