INDIAN TERRORISTS

Southland Times, Issue 25360, 12 August 1935, Page 11

INDIAN TERRORISTS

ORGANIZATION DESCRIBED

“GREATER MENACE THAN EVER.”

A short, mild-mannered bespectacled journalist, whom Indian terrorists have been trying to kill for years, came quietly through the Customs at Croydon airport one day last month. He returned home fora six-months’ peaceful holiday after being in India for fourteen years. It is the first time he has been in Britain for twenty-one years. 2 . Mr H. G. Franks, the journalist, is the English editor of the only Muslim English newspaper in India, the Star of India. He is the only non-official who was given special facilities to study terrorism from the inside. He made the study—and as a result is on the terrorists’ black list. „ “I had a guard to follow me about, he said, “but I dispensed with him some months ago when the reforms came in. Those reforms took the vvmd out of the terrorists’ sails, and things became quieter. . . ' r “They became so quiet that 1 am told many people over here have the mistaken impression that terrorism in India is dead. That is a fatal mistake. Terrorism is very much alive. It is more dangerous, threatening, and menacing now than ever it was, for the terrorists have gone underground. “They get their finances by robbing mail trains, sometimes wrecking them and looting the dead and the mails. They buy their arms from sailors at the ports and by smuggling them over the border. Two German sailors from a German passenger liner were recently sentenced to long terms of imprisonment for selling arms to the terrorists’ agents. “Certain well-known leaders aye stiu at large; still receiving the assistance of a large sympathetic section of the Hindu population. The authorities know, for example, that in one town there are at least three or four terrorist leaders, but cannot find them. “At the height of the terrorist activities precautions were taken that would have done credit to Chicago Wh'tt men, known to be on the black list, were followed by guards who had not only revolvers drawn but ready cocked. Terrorists walked about almost openly. “There are still about 2500 known or suspected terrorists in prison as detenus,’ for whom there has been no trial but who are known to be dangerous ’men associated with terrorist or“These men receive allowances which are amazing. Their families are kept by the State. Their insurances are paid. Some of the men receive allowances of £lOO a month, just because in business life they are barristers or lawyers and so on. “In spite of the present apparent quietude, recruiting is still going . on Anarchist armies are still being trained in secret.”