INDIAN DANGER.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2084, 20 May 1907, Page 1

INDIAN DANGER.

ORIGIN OF THE' TROUBLE. ■ f THE LAHORE LIBEL.

In February last the proprietor and the editor of a Lahore paper, the Punjabi, wore lined and sentenced to terms of imprionment of j tw.O years and six months respectively. The Times explains the circumstances of the case as follows: —The calb in which, as reported in our telegraphic columns, the proprietor and the editor of the Punjabi, a biweekly paper printed in English, have been sentenced to imprisonment and fine for sedition was instituted under section 153 (A) of the Indian Penal Code, the defendants being charged with “attempting to produce feelings of enmity and hate between the native and European clasps of His Majesty’s subjects.” The prosecution was in respect of two paragraphs appearing in the issue of April 11th last. The first paragraph, headed “How misunderstandings oc•cui/,” referred to the comments of the Ainrita Bazar Patrika” and another native paper on “two shock-, ing cases” of oppression reported in an earlier issue of the Punjabi, one of them being an alleged incident in the course of a shooting expedition in the j ungle. Ah' official . enquiry into the circumstances was suggested, and in respect to’ this the Punjabi asked :—“Are instances of manslaughter, yea, even of desperate murder of Indians at the hands of European officers so rare in India that our contemporary should be ready to pin his trust to the impartiality of an inquiry? How ruiany poor Indians have been mercilessly launched into Eternity in the past for being mistaken for bears and monkeys, or for having so-called enlarged spleens.” The second paragraph, headed “A Deliberate Murder,” said that instances have occurred of deliberate, if unpremeditated, murder by irascible European officers in the Punjab district who went out hunting on horseback, accompanied by a mounted Mohomedan orderly. A boar was killed, and the orderly was directed to cany the carcase secured to his saddle, but on Religious grounds he refused to touch the unclean animal. ■ The officers stood aghast, petrified at his temerity—but for a second only.”! “By ithe next moment,” continued the pargraph, “the sahib recovered his wits and saw that it was insubordination or even worse —downright mutiny; and what is the reward of mutiny ? Why, a short shrift, and a swing into Eternity. No s.oqnov thought of than the brilliant idea Qf the Imperial hunter was put into practice. He fired at the poor Indian (who cared more for the faith that was in him than even the f avcv of his official chief) and shot him dead without remorse or compunction. If anybody was ever guilty of murder that identical sahib surely was. , , That murderer is at large to-day enjoying the privileges of - the dominant race and the sweets of life like any innocent man; and yet we have reason to believe that the matter had soon reached the ears of the higher authorities. The only thing done in the case, however, was to get the gentleman transferred from the district and a new man put in his place with strict injunctions not to allow the skeleton in the official cupboard tq see the light of day.” At the outset of the para.graph the incident was referred to as having occurred “only the other day,” but in the course of the hearing the defence admitted the correctness of the prosecution’s theory that the paragraph had reference to circumstances under which a police constable named ltafat Ali met his death in .the year 1899(1/ ’('he evidence showed (hat the whole story was fabricated;’ that the officers in question, Mr. Spencer, now deputy superintendent of Multan, and Ml’-. Charles Donald, were nqt accompanied by tjie deceased constable in their shoot; that no game of any kind was secured; and that the constable was on an ordinary errand when he was thrown and dragged by a restive horse. Yet after the trial and conviction of the authors of this wicked libel, doinoustratlons of sympathy were organised in their honor by their Hindu admirers.