BRUSH WITH TRIBESMEN

Wairarapa Age, 15 April 1935, Page 5

BRUSH WITH TRIBESMEN

BRITISH OFFICIAL KILLED IN INDIA. ASSAULT ON VILLAGE. BIG FORCE ENGAGED. CALCUTTA, April 12. The turbulent North-West frontier again claimed the life of a British official in the person of Mr. Leslie William Hazlett Duncan Best, political agent in Malakand, who was shot and fatally wounded by tribesmen at Agra, Malakand. Mr. Best was killed in the operations yesterday against hostile tribesmen led by the Fakir of Alingar. British and Indian troops of the Nowshera column attacked the raiders, numbering 900, with the object of driving them back over the Swat River. The Royal Air Force aeroplanes bombed and machine-gunned the tribesmen’s positions, after which the troops occupied the village of Loe Agra after a stubborn resistance in which Mr. Bast was killed and several troops injured. VICTIM AMBUSHED. WHILE TRYING TO OPEN NEGOTIATIONS. (Received Sundig, 6.30 p.m.) ' LONDON, April 13. The "Daily Mail’s” Peshawar correspondent says that Mr. Best, who was thirty-five years of age, was escorted by six Sowars who rode out as the forces approached with a view to meeting the tribesmen and negotiating with them to prevent large scale fighting, but he was ambushed. Three of the escort were wounded.