DEATH DECREE IN THE PUNJAB TO STOP DISORDERS

Grey River Argus, 21 March 1947, Page 5

DEATH DECREE IN THE PUNJAB TO STOP DISORDERS

NEW DELHI, March 19.

A Government communique issued in Lahore to-day states that the casualties in the rural areas of the Punjab province during the communal disorders were very large. Raiders from across the frontier helped local inhabitants in misdeeds. An act providing the death penalty for attempted murder, abduction, rape, banditry and arson was announced by the Governor of Punjab, Sir Evelyn Jenkins. “The Punjab Disturbed Areas Act” specifies northern and Western Funjab and several large towns, including Amritar, Lahore and Jullundur. It empowers magistrates and police officers to open lire or use other means, even causing death, against anyone disobeying the ban on assembly of over five • persons and the carrying of weapons. Some 2000 members of the ProCongress Moslem organisation called Red Shirts have arrived in Peshawar to help check the communal rioting.

A north-west frontier Government spokesman said they were unarmed and would use non-violent methods.

The Associated Banking Corporation of India has closed its doors, jfter a run on funds for a month. It i s a Bombay bank with a predominantly Moslem board of directors, and 12 branches in different parts of India. The bank, which was established in 1942, had deposits exceeding £2,500,000 according to the latest balance sheet. Disturbances broke out north of Calcutta. Hindus and Moslems threw brickbats and bottles for about two hours before the police restored order. Fourteen persons were sent to hospital, one of them stabbed. The police said there had been some fatalities. The Under-Secretary for India, Mr. Arthur Henderson, said the British Government could not accept a Conservative suggestion that, the riots were- connected with the British Government’s new India policy. He was non-committal about the likelihood of responsible Government being established in the Punjab in the near future. British troops must share the maintenance of order while they remained in India.