Author:
Publication: Noakhali1946.blogspot.com
Date: January 4, 2009
URL: http://noakhali1946.blogspot.com/2009/01/refugees-tell-of-terror-in-bengal-as.html
Special to The New York Times
Calcutta, India, Oct. 18 (London Times dispatch)
Unofficial reports reaching Calcutta indicate
that acts of violence are continuing on an alarming scale in the districts
of Noakhali and Tippera. This is despite the local Government's assurance
that the communal situation in eastern Bengal had shown some improvement during
the last twenty-four hours.
Hundreds of refugees have reached Calcutta
from these districts and they have a grim picture of the happenings there
during the last eight days.
They say that a hundred villages have been
burned by hooligans, that hundreds of persons have been butchered or maimed
and destitute. They report that both districts are infernos of communal fury,
and that unless the Government urgently dispatches more troops and police
whole minority populations will be wiped out.
[In new Delhi Mohandas K. Gandhi repeated
his declaration to Indian women that they should commit suicide rather than
submit to dishonor.]
Both Noakhali and Tipperah are predominantly
Moslem areas. The total population there is just over 8,000,000 and of these
only 2,000,000 are Hindus.
The latest reports show that the scenes of
the disturbances since yesterday have been moving from Noakhali into Tippera
and that they are concentrating in the Chandpur subdivision of that district.
The capital town, Chandpur, is a large railway
and river junction toward which refugees are fleeing in an attempt to escape
into western Bengal. But most of the roads and the river exits are being guarded
by armed rowdies and a large population of the evacuees has cut into the jungles
and swamps to avoid molestation.
Thus far police and military action in the
affected areas has been confined to about six firings. The casualties from
this source are about twenty killed and an equal number injured.
The total casualties from the riots will perhaps
never be known. Official sources [Moslem in Bengal] remain silent over this
point but unofficial reports variously estimate the totals between 5,000 and
6,000 killed and 1,500 to 2,000 injured. It is reported that a further 50,000
to 60,000 have been forcibly converted ot another faith or abducted.
There is grave public anxiety in Calcutta
over the inadequacy of the police and military forces dispatched to the stricken
areas by the Bengal Government. So far only two companies of troops are known
to have been sent to an area covering several hundred square miles. During
the August Calcutta riots had at their disposal about 45,000 troops to protect
the city.
Food is another urgent problem. With both
railway and river communications seriously dislocated and trade completely
at a standstill in most parts of Noakhali and Tippera, thousands face starvation.
Local leaders have made urgent representations to the Government to fly food
to the starving villages. They have also telegraphed to the Governor of Bengal
and the Chief Minister, who at present at the hill resort of Darjeeling, jointly
to visit the affected areas.
The Secretary of the Bengal Hindu Mahasabha
party has just received from the Governor's private secretary a message that
the Governor proposed to visit Noakhali soon.
Gandhi Advises Suicide
New Delhi, India, Oct. 18 (AP)-
Mohandas K Gandhi, "spiritual leader"
of the Hindu-led Congress party, again today advised women in eastern Bengal
to take their own lives rather than submit to dishonor. In Bombay the provincial
Congress party chief called for halting of all business activity as a demonstration
of sympathy for riot victims.
Mr. Gandhi said he felt a "call"
to go to the trouble areas as soon as the situation in new Delhi permitted.
He said that at his request Acharya Kripalani, newly elected president of
the Congress party, and Sarat Chandra Bose, recently retired member of the
interim Government, had gone to investigate the riot reports.
He was most emphatic in his instructions to
women, insisting it was "not an idle idea" and he meant every word
he said.
Last night he advised women to suffocate themselves
by holding their breath, but he said tonight that he had been told by physicians
that suicide by that means was impossible.
"The only way known to medicine for instant
self immolation is strong poisonous doses," he siad he was told. He added:
"If this is so I would advise every one running the risk of dishonor
to take poison before submission to dishonor."
http://www.eastbengal.org/oct19_1946.pdf
