INDIA’S DISUNITY EVOKES APPEAL FROM THE KING

Grey River Argus, 22 May 1947, Page 7

INDIA’S DISUNITY EVOKES APPEAL FROM THE KING

LONDON, May 20. Reuter’s Calcutta correspondent says that Hindu villagers set fire to 200 huts when they attacked a camp in the Midnapor district containing 5000 Moslem refugees from Bihar. The Punjab Government, in a communique, reported a distinctly improved situation in'Lahore, though some fires are still burning. The police fired in one of the few incidents when six incendiary bombs were thrown at a house. The police killed two persons when they were forced to fire on rioters in a Lahore suburb. The Lahore police, seeking a troop of armed Sikhs, who in a jeep at dawn on Sunday attempted to attack Moslems, J’ound 11 uniformed and fully-armed S State militiamen of the Sikh State of Faridkot in a house at Lahore belonging to the Rajah of Faridkot, Sir Har Indar Singh. At Calcutta three were killed and 40 injured to-day in 20 outbreaks of shooting, acid-throwing and arson. Troops and police fired eight rounds to disperse a crowd attempting to burn a house. They fired again when a bomb was flung at a train The disturbances were mainly conin the suburb of Howrah, fined to the eastern areas. The police arrested 177 persons. The Governor of the Punjab, Sir Evan Jenkins, escorted by police with fixed bayonets, walked Lahore’s streets, where the population under curfew raised a tumult of war songs and slogans that could be heard for miles. Night curfews are to continued. A battalion of Gurkhas and 700 men of the Inniskillings are ready for heavy action. INDIAN ARMY QUESTION The Indian Armed Forces Nationalisation Committee in New Delhi submitted a plan for appointing understudies to officers holding key posts in Indian defence. The plan proposes that after about a year’s training Indian officers will fill the posts of commander-in-chief of the General Staff, adjutant-general, quartermaster-general and G.O.C.’s of the three indian commands. It is believed that this is a step to accustom Indians to responsibility in senior appointments well before the British withdraw. BRITISH ATTITUDE. LONDON. May 20. The Evening Standard says that His Majesty, as Emperor of India, may ,directly appeal to the Indian leaders to resolve their differences and recah an agreement on the future constitution for independent India, so that the handing over of power may be performed smoothly. If the appeal is made, it will be in the form of a written message, which the Viceroy, Viscount Mountbatten, will read when the roundtable conference opens at Delhi on June 2.

The Viceroy is expected to return to India next Monday or Tuesday. The Daily Telegraph’s New Delhi correspondent says that the Congress committee will meet on May 31, and the Moslem League working committee will meet on June 1, on the eve of the round-table conference.