INDIAN PALACE SECRETS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 18 May 1925, Page 7

INDIAN PALACE SECRETS.

MUMTAZ BEGUM AND HER CHILD. JEWEL THEFTS' ALLEGED. LONDON, April 29. “Mumtaz Begum was anxious to escape from the palace, at Indore, not because she wanted to leave the Maharajah, but because ghe wanted to take away the Indore jewellery.” This was the suggestion of counsel for the defence during the re-examina-tion of Mumtaz Begum, the 22-year-old Mahommedan girl, formerly the* Maharajah’s mistress, with whose attempted abduction, and murder of Abdul Kader Bawla, a Bombay merchant, nine natives of Indore State are being charged at the High Court. Begum, .Bawla (her protector), and another Indian were attacked when motoring on Malabo h Hill, Bombay, in January, all being wounded, Bawla fatally. The abduction was frustrated by the intervention of four British officers. Mumtaz stated that while in Bombay, on hearing that the Maharajah contemplated the issue of a warrant against her, she requested Bawla to consult a lawyer.

The young woman later startled thb courtroom by stating that a female child which had been born to her was murdered by the nurse. Counsel for the defence asked permission to cross-examine Begum on the allegation that the child was murdered. His case was that the child was stillborn.

Counsel for the prosecution replied that he put the question only to indicate Begum’s state of mind.*

Mumtaz Begum, continuing, said she implored Bawla in November, 1924, to protect her against an extradition warrant from Indore issued on a false charge that she had taken away jewellery form the palace. Begum said she would rather commit suicide than he taken to Indore, because there she would be done to death. Begum was then allowed to leave the witness box after her three days’ ordeal, which she stood remarkably welj.