Violence in Punjab Continues Unabated

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26541, 16 August 1947, Page 7

Violence in Punjab Continues Unabated

NEW DELHI, Aug. 14. It is unofficially estimated that the latest outbreak in the Punjab rioting, which is the worst in five months, nas taken toll of 153 dead and 136 wounded. It has fanned out into the east and west sections of the province, which fall respectively into the Indian and Pakistan dominions. The Joint Defence Command has thrown additional troops into the disturbed areas, and it is expected that the two full brigades now operating will be reinforced to-day by a third. Train travel has become unsafe in many places owing to bullet, stone, and knife attacks. In Lahore some persons managed to board trains for Delhi only after six days’ wait in an overcrowded railway station. Fathers had to abandon their families and mothers were torn from their children in the mad scramble to get a train for any place away from the scenes of horror and destruction They were mainly Hindus and Sikhs. The rioting has almost paralysed the local daily administration of Lahore and other places. Fire brigades to-day worked under a tremendous handicap as they tried unsuccessfully to reach the scene of the Lahore fires as buildings collapsed in flames into the roadways