SABOTAGE plot in INDIA FORESTALLED BY THE GOVERNMENT

Grey River Argus, 22 February 1949, Page 5

SABOTAGE plot in INDIA FORESTALLED BY THE GOVERNMENT

Many Communists Before Railway Strike (Rec. 8.30). NEW DELHI, Feb. 21. Five hundred arrests have been made throughout India in the last two days of Communist ring-leaders who had planned to attack power houses, workshops, signal boxes, and bridges on the railways, and other communications, says the Daily Herald’s New Delhi correspondent. A high official of the Indian Home Office said that the Government had definite information that the Communists wanted to use a railway strike, which has been called for March 9, for extensive sabotage. Secret circulars, detailing Communist intentions to use explosives against vital installations had been discovered, and led to the round-up. Some postal and telegraph workers who planned to strike on March 9 have also been arrested. Armed police are guarding key points on the railways, patrolling tracks, and watching pumping stations and power houses. The Government has banned the Communist paper, “People’s Age”, in West Bengal. Arrests made over the week-end bring the total number of Communists detained in India to about sixteen hundred. The Indian Government is expected to introduce a Bill making' strikes in the essential services illegal when such strikes are “promoted for party ends”. __________