200,000 DEAD IN PUNJAB RIOTING

Northern Advocate, 28 August 1947, Page 7

200,000 DEAD IN PUNJAB RIOTING

(Received 1.10 p.m.) LONDON, August 27. OFFICIALS estimate that about 100,000 Moslems have been killed in East Punjab (India) since the rioting began 10 days ago, says Reuters Lahore correspondent. They base their estimate on refugees’ reports. Sikh leaders estimate that Sikh and Hindu dead in West Punjab total a similar number.

Stories of appalling slaughter of minorities still are coming in, but lack of communication and disturbed conditions make it difficult to obtain a picture of the situation. It is unofficially reported that nonMoslem minorities in the towns of Chiniot and Jhang, in Lyallpur, 80 miles west of Lahore, suffered badly in the recent riots. Sikh leaders, visiting Sheikhpura. said their jeep had to drive over bodies on the road outside the town, as they were too numerous to avoid. Sardar Bhupender Singh Mann, secretary of a leading Sikh political organisation, estimated that 10,000 Sikhs and Hindus had been killed there by Moslems yesterday and today. He added that thousands had been burned in their homes and thousands more shot or transfixed by spears.

After a visit to Shiekhpura to evacuate refugees, Sardar Mann said that out of a total population of about 12.000, his rescue party was able to locate only about 400. A Moslem crowd killed five Hindus and two Sikhs in the Lahore district court compound after their acquittal on rioting charges. The Civil and Military Gazette of Lahore reported: “The bare truth about recent happenings on both sides of the border will never be told. “If it were it would not be believed outside this country. “The toll of human life and happiness taken by frenzied savagery in the past few weeks constitutes the blackest page in India’s moral history.” The stream of refugees in Pakistan from East Punjab continues, though attacks on Moslems are said to be lessening.