THE “FSRM HAND” IN INDIA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1832, 17 April 1907, Page 1

THE “FSRM HAND” IN INDIA.

In its telegraphic summary of the week ending February 22nd, the “Times" records that the proprietor and the editor of a Lahore paper, the “Punjabi,” had been fined and sentenced to terms of imprisonment of two years and six months respectively. In another column the “Times" explains the Circumstances of the case as follows: The case in which, as reported In our telegraphic columns, the proprietor and the editor of the “Punjabi," a bi-weekly paper printed in English, have been sentenced to imprisonment and fine for sedition was instituted under section 153 (A) of the Indian Penal Code, the defendants being charged with “attempting to produce feelings of enmity and hatred between the native and European classes of his Majesty's subjects.” The prosecution was in respect to two paragraphs appearing in the issue of April 11th last. The first paragraph, headed “How Misunderstandings Occur," referred to the comments of the “Amrita Bazar Patrika" and another native paper on “two shocking cases" of oppression reported in an earlier issue of the “Punjabi," one of them being an alleged incident in the course of a shooting expedition in the jungle. An official inquiry into the circumstances was suggested, and in respect to this the “Punjabi” asked: —“Are instances of manslaughter, yea, even of desperate murder of Indians at the hands of European officers so.rare in India that our contemporary should be ready to pin his trust to the impartiality of an inquiry? How many poor Indians have been mercilessly launched into eternity in the past for being mistaken for bears and monkeys, or. for having socalled enlarged spleens.” The second paragraph, headed “A Deliberate Murder," said that instances of deliberate, if unpremeditated, murder by irascible European officers in the Punjab district who went out hunting on horseback, accompanied by a mounted Mahomedan. orderly. A boar was killed, and the orderly was directed to carry the carcase secured to his saddle, but on religious grounds he refused to touch the unclean animal.- The officers “stood aghast, petrified at his temerity—but for a second only.” “By the next moment,” continued the paragraph, “the sahib recovered his wits and saw that it was insubordination or even worse—downright mutiny; and what is the reward of mutiny. Why, a short shrift and a swing into eternity. No sooner thought of -an the brilliant idea of the imperial hunter was put into practice. He fired at the poor Indian (who cared more for the faith that was in him than even the favour of his official chief) and shot him dead without compunction or remorse. If anybody was ever guilty of murder that identical sahib surely was That murderer is at large to-day enjoying the privileges of the dominant race and the sweets or life like any innocent man; and yet we have reason to believe that the matter had soon reached the ears of the higher authorities. The only thing done in the case, however, was to get the gentleman transferred from the district and a new man put in his place with strict injunctions not to allow the skeleton m the official cupboard to see the light of day, tue outset of the paragraph the incident was referred to as having occurrer “only the other day,” but in the course of the hearing the defence admitted the correctness of the prosecution theory that the paragraph had reference to circumstances under which a police constable named Rafat Ali met his death in the year 1899. The evidence showed that the whole story was fabricated; that the officers in question, Mr Spencer, now deputy superintendent of Multan, and Mr Charles Donald, were not accompanied by the deceaseu constable in their shoot; that no game of any kind was secured; and that the constable was on. an ordinary errand when he was thrown, and dragged by a restive horse. Yet after the trial and conviction of the authors of this wicked libel, demonstrations of sympathy were organised in meir honour by their Hindu admirers.