SABOTAGE IN INDIA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25014, 7 September 1942, Page 2

SABOTAGE IN INDIA

" FIFTH COLUMN " ACTIVITY AGITATORS ARRESTED (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, Sept. 5: Now that the disorders due to the Congress campaign are under control, it is possible to refer to the serious threat from Fifth Columnists. Rioting and street demonstrations have been merely a nuisance compared with attempts to sabotage communications and war production. Mobs led by agitators obviously acting according to a plan burned down a number of railway stations, tore up the rails, and wrecked trains, but prompt police action prevented the sabotage from being more extensive. Nevertheless, transport for a time was dislocated over a large area of country. The trouble persists, but the most dangerous agitators are now in gaol.

POLICE FIRE ON MOBS (Rec. 7 p.m.) NEW DELHI, Sept. 5. Three instances of the police firing on mobs are reported to-day. Three were killed at the Lakhisarai railway station, in the Monghyr district, and one was killed at the Jhankanpur railway station. The police also fired on an armed and violent mob at Belsand, in the Muzaffarpur district. B. Ramarao, editor of the National Herald, in Lucknow, lost his appeal against a sentence of six months' imprisonment and a fine of 750 rupees for a conviction as the result of a defamation suit filed by the superintendent of the former Lucknow camp gaol. Ramarao's paper, which is owned by Pandit Nehru, alleged that prisoners were badly treated.