LARGE FORCE ON FAKIR’S TRAIL

Southland Times, Issue 23183, 26 April 1937, Page 5

LARGE FORCE ON FAKIR’S TRAIL

33,000 BRITISH TROOPS MASSED SLIGHT OPPOSITION ON NORTH-WEST FRONTIER (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright) (Received April 25, 7.30 p.m.) SIMLA, April 24. With a concentration of 33,000 troops, five companies of light tanks, two squadrons of the Royal Air Force and the assumption of political control of Waziristan and the neighbouring tribal areas by General Sir John Coleridge, Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Command, operations against the Fakir .of Ipi, the financial tribal leader, have begun in earnest. The first division from Rawalpindi has already moved, and two infantry brigades are establishing themselves at a bridge head south of the Tochi river and are occupying advance camps at Tochi and neighbouring strategical points. The opposition is slight, and the casualties are two sepoys killed and eight wounded. An air squadron bombed an assemblage of tribesmen near Tochi. ' A lashkar (tribal force) of from 200 to 300 strong, which the Fakir of Ipi led in the early stages, raided a border village carried off Hindus and looted and burned their shops. POLICE FIRE ON HINDU MOB RIOT DURING PROCESSION ’ SIMLA, April 23. Fourteen persons were killed and 42 were wounded in riots at Behror, the police being compelled to fire on the mob.

The rioting occurred during a Hindu procession in the Moslem quarter. The police assert that the rioters fired first