DOUBLE FIJI TRAGEDY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18158, 2 August 1922, Page 9

DOUBLE FIJI TRAGEDY.

MURDER ANO SUICIDE. WOMAN DONE TO DEATH. ASSAILANT FOUND HANGED. [FROM OT7R OWN CORRESPONDENT.] SUVA, July 24. News has just arrived in Suva of a terrible tragedy, which has happened in a quiet little settlement called E»reketi, in tho district of Lautoka. A qunet and industrious Indian labourer lived seemingly happily with a woman in a hut of his own. He was known by the name of Varadia, and he had never attracted any nStice during his lifetime. Varadia, like many others, of his countrymen on the west side of Viti levu, has been out on strike tor a long time, and the shortness of supplies begat, with Varadia and hia woman, as it has done with many millions more, | shortness of temper and increasing inclination to quarrel. So quarrels began to become more fre3uent, but little notice was taken, as omestic quarrels among Indians are very common, and so the days went by, until July 7.5 arrived. On the forenoon of that day everything seemed quiet about the little house and its little garden as two women neiehbours ca.me along to have a gossip with Varadia's woman. But there was no response to their knock or their call, so they cautiously entered, only to shriek words of alarm and consternation "-■•'hhotirß came running, and investigation showed the housewife lying on the floor of her ropm in a pool of blood, her head being almost severed from tho body. It w*is a brutal murder. The woman had been unmercifully done to death with a well-sharpened cane knife, which lay beside the body. It was somewhat of a mysteiy how such a orutal murder could have taken place without any alarm having bsen given to the neighbours. There was no siene of Varadia, and suspicion quickly fastened upon him, but search parties could not locate him. Ne.xt day he was found in the jungle, dead, hanging from a tree, and it was evident who had haen guilty of the double tragedy.