SERIOUS RIOTS IN BOMBAY

Southland Times, Issue 23024, 19 October 1936, Page 7

SERIOUS RIOTS IN BOMBAY

Hindus And Moslems Clash 46 KILLED IN THREE DAYS (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) (Rec. 6.30 p.m.) Bombay, October 17. The rioting which began on Thursday and continued yesterday again started at dawn, accompanied by looting of shops and setting fire to Hindu temples. The police fired on a crowd of Hindus attempting to burn a mosque, and altogether have been forced to open fire six times since the disturbances started. The casualties to-day were nine killed and 100 injured, bringing the aggregate to 46 killed and 440 injured. A Moslem policeman, single-handed, heroically defied a mob of 300 threatenin g to burn a Hindu family of five women, four children and an aged man, until reinforcements arrived. Yesterday the hooliganism spread, despite the prohibition of carrying arms, and mobs looted and attempted to set fire to mosques and temples. The police fired again in the afternoon. The trams were stopped and shops in the affected areas were closed. The riot commenced at dawn throughout the city and the police were compelled to fire four times within two hours, causing many casualties. One hundred arrests have been made. Despite the curfew clashes continued in the evening over a wide area. There are 50 stabbing cases in one hospital alone.

The Hindu and Moslem leaders had a conference and have appealed jointly to the communities for peace, promising a settlement of the dispute by negotiation.

Ugly scenes occurred in the Byculla area, when a mob tried to attack a Hindu temple and set fire to the mosque. Five hundred district police reinforcements who were sent in thwarted the attempt. It is a strange contrast that while the Indian quarter is seething with excitement the European section is peaceful, and traffic is normal.

Thirteen were killed and 100 were injured, the latter including seven British police officers, in riots which followed an attack by Moslems on workers who were digging the foundations of a Hindu temple, which, because of the widening of a road, is to be rebuilt nearer the Mosque at Byculla.

Stoning and stabbing of pedestrians occurred in numerous other centres. Fifty arrests were made.