CRIMES IN INDIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20306, 13 July 1929, Page 11

CRIMES IN INDIA.

WAGING WAR AND MURDER. TRIAL OF MEN CHARGED. United Service. DELHI, July 11. Tho trial has begun at Lahore of nine men who are cargcd with murder, dacoity, waging war against tho Iving-Emperor, and collecting arms, ammunition and bombs. The accusations refer, inter alia, to tho murder of a police ollieer, Mr. Saunders, at Lahore, in December, the assembly bomb outrago in the Assembly at Delhi, the attempted murder of an Indian detective at Benares, and the attempt on the lives of the members'of Sir John Simon's commission.

Mr. J. P. Saunders, aged 21, AssistantSuperintendent of Police at Lahore, was murdered on December 17 as he was lcuving his ollice. Two Indian students iiied five shots at him, and then killed his Indian clerk, who attempted to arrest them. The assailants disappeared into an adjoining Hindu college, and escaped by another entrance.

It was believed tbat the crime was one of revengo for the death of Lai Lajpat Rai. tho Punjab Nationalist leader, on tho same day last November, after a clash with the police at a boycott demonstration against the Indian Commission. Two bombs were thrown at the meeting of the Indian Legislative Assembly on April 8, from a gallery. One fell near Sir G. E. Schuster, Finance Member of the Executive Cour-cil of the Viceroy of India, who was slightly injured. A panic pre'vailed. Two men with bombs and pistols in their possession were arrested. Four Indian members of tho. House were slightly injured. The Government benches were entirely wrecked. A Red pamphlet headed: "Hindustan Socialist Republican Army Notice" and signed "Bairn j, honorary chief," was thrown with the bombs. This contained the words: "Long live tho revolution." The two men who were arrested surrendered easily, one of them first firing two shots from a pistol. They were later sentenced to transportation for life. Sir John Simon was in the Assembly as a spectator when the outrago occurred.

A note containing a threat of death was received by tho editor of the Karachi Daily Gazette from the " Hindustan Socialist Republican Army " on May 9. It ran as follows :

Hindustan Socialist Republican Army, Sind Branch.

The editor of the Daily Gazette should bo shot to death by soldier No. 206, with tho help of soldier No. 140, as early as possible. The editor has encouraged Miss Katharine Mayo, tho authoress, and is guilty under section 121 of tho Hindustan Republican Government codo for trying to overthrow Republicans.—By order, H. G. liana, O.C. Sind Circle. Copy to all concerned.

Tho reference to Miss Mayo is tho result of reproduction in the Gazette of extracts from her story " Slaves of tho Gods " and correspondence dealing with it. The Hindustan Socialist Republican Army is held to ho responsible for tho bomb outrage in tho Indian Legislative Assembly. It has also threatened death to many Karachi merchants, to Mr. Scott, senior superintendent of tho Lahore police, and to the Meerut magistrate who tried the Tndian Communists rounded up in Bombay. Tho editors of several newspapers, including the Englishman of Calcutta, received copies early in May of a manifesto signed by one of the leaders of the bloodthirsty Hindustan Republican Socialist Army. The document outlines an Anarchist campaign to murder prominent Europeans and the formation of Rolshevik bands in tho Indian States.