SENTENCED TO DEATH

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17909, 13 October 1932, Page 12

SENTENCED TO DEATH

SIX INDIANS CONDEMNED TWO CRIMES IN FIJI SUVA, October 7. Evidence of two brutal crimes lias been brought to Suva by the Lautoka Circuit Court, which returned to the capital this week. On the vessel which brought the Court back to Suva were also six Indians who had been tried in connection with these two cases and condemned to death. Unless the Executive Council grants a reprieve they will be executed at the Suva gaol upon tho expiration of three clear Sundays following the day of confirmation.

Although Fiji possesses a very mixed population, consisting of Europeans, Fijians, Samoans, Tongans, Chinese, Japanese and the numerous Indian castes and creeds, crimes of violence arc comparatively rare. When they do occur, they are principally among the various Indian rams, and generally aro due to domestic differences which in themselves arise largely fiotn the fact that in regard to some of the Indian castes and creeds there is a large preponderance of males. In the first case, four men, all Punjabis, were found guilty of murdering Hunan Singh at Nadi on April 7. Evidence was given that tiie four accused entered llanan Singh’s house at night when ho and his wife were asleep. One man seized his legs and another his arms, while tho two other accused put a rope around his neck, and, pulling from each side of the bed, slowly strangled him. His wife in the meantime had jumped out of bed and stood alongside. When they arrived they carried a lighted torch, and by its flickering light the crime was carried out. Evidence was also given that efforts had been made by the accused to compel the wife to live with one of their number.

The second case involved a similar motive. It was shown in evidence that the convicted men and two others had called for another Indian named Shiek Adam and had walked with him to tho house of one of the accused. There they set upon him with big cane knives, felling him to the ground, whereupon his head was quickly severed. In evidence, the wife of deceased stated that she had legally married him following an occasion when she had run away with one of tlie accused. The body was tied in sacking and thrown into a swamp, being recovered by the police a few days later. —Auckland Herald.