DURBAN RETURNING TO NORMAL AFTER RACIAL RIOTS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22850, 21 January 1949, Page 5

DURBAN RETURNING TO NORMAL AFTER RACIAL RIOTS

(10.10 a.m.) DURBAN, Jan. 20. Indian refugee camps were beginning to empty and more Indian shops and businesses were reopening today as Durban and Pietermaritzburg began to resume their normal routine after the racial riots.

The deathroll has now risen to 129 and the total casualties are listed at more than 1240.

The Transvaal Indian Congress today protested to Dr. D. F. Malan. the South African Prime Minister, and to leading Parliamentarians of every party against a leaflet “preaching naked and organised violence against Indians,” which, it is said, was issued by the South African Protection League.

It called on the Government to take action against the league under the Riotous Assemblies Act. The leaflet advertised a meeting for Europeans at the Seerust Town Hall. “The leaflet is highly inflammatory," said the message of protest, “and the exhortation to bloodshed it contains will in time lead to disastrous consequences. We appeal to the Government to take immediate, drastic action either under the Riotous Assemblies Act or under some other law to prevent unlawful violence against defenceless Indians.” The South African Protection League is a body whose object is the removal of Indians from the country. Its activities so' far have been confined to organising a boycott of Indian businesses.