BUTCHERED BY MOSLEMS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26559, 6 September 1947, Page 7

BUTCHERED BY MOSLEMS

REMOTE PAKISTAN DISTRICT TRAGEDY Rec. 9 p.m. NEW DELHI, Sept. 4. An Associated Press correspondent who has just toured the Punjab said that a courier told Mr Nehru of new appalling butchery of Hindus and Sikhs in a remote section of Pakistan Punjab, and that it was only with difficulty that Hindu troops who knew of it restrained from taking reprisals. A small Hindu military force sent into the Shakirgah district, 50 miles southeast of Sialkot, to protect 120 000 Sikhs and Hindus, found only 1500 survivors. Two thousand had escaped into the adjoining Jammu State and roads, fields and villages were littered with thousands of bodies of victims. Mr Nehru is reported to have told associates that more survivors probably escaped, but he was convinced that the shocking tragedy had occurred. The courier said that the People were trapped because two sides of the district were bounded by the swollen river Ravi, with Moslems controlling the ferry boats and the only bridge. Mobs formed almost a solid banner across the third side. The courier also reported that Indian troops wanted an expedition of their forces to sweep into Pakistan in search for 6000 young women who they • believed Moslems abducted in the Shakirgah massacre. The Pakistan Government, worried by the chaos in West Punjab has sent 400 personal letters to. retired British officers of the Indian civil service and police offering them liberal terms to come back at once on three to five years’ contracts. ______