KILLED MAGISTRATE
LIFE IMPRISONMENT. Wearing red saris (sashes) and with their hair adorned with lotus flowers, Santi Ghose and Sunity Chowguri, Bengali school girls, were sentenced at Calcutt to "transportation for life" for the murder of Magistrate C. B. Stevens recently. The girls probably will be taken across the canal, 100 yards wide, which is the boundary of the adjoining presidency, where they are expected to spend the first section of their life sentences. They doubtless will be separated eventually and will be moved at intervals to gaols in other parts of India. Life sentence carries remissions amounting to two months yearly for good conduct, so the girls may expect to be imprisoned for about 16 years. As they came from respectable families, they probably will be nurses or clerical assistants, although their sentence theoretically calls for hard labour. For 40 minutes the girls listened while the presiding judge read the judgment, which covered 26 typewritten pages. When the terms of their sentences were translated to them they shrugged their shoulders in apparent indifference. As they passed down the stairs to their cells one of them remarked that it was better to die outright than, to spend their lives in a place like a horse's stable. A few moments later their clear, girlish voices could be heard singing Nationalist songs, one of which they had composed for the occasion.
The two girls, both about 16 years old and students at the University of Bengal, approached the magistrate, Mr. Stevens, at Comilla, with, a request that he assist them in arranging a swimming contest among the girls at the college. While he was reading the written request they handed to him, the girls drew pistols and fired point blank, killing the magistrate instantly. Then they surrendered.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/KCC19320322.2.14
Bibliographic details
King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3446, 22 March 1932, Page 3
Word Count
295KILLED MAGISTRATE King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3446, 22 March 1932, Page 3
Using This Item
Waitomo Investments is the copyright owner for the King Country Chronicle. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 New Zealand licence. This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Waitomo Investments. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.