Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 175, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1920 — Charge British With Atrocity [ARTICLE]

Charge British With Atrocity

Indian Statesmen Disclose Attack by General Dyer on 20,000 Unarmed Natives. TWO ARRESTS START TROUBLE Natives Seek to Present Petition for Release of Leaders and Are Attacked by Soldiers—l,ooo x Are Massacred. New York. —An attack by British soldiers upon a crowd of unarmed natives of India, as they were seeking to present *to a British deputy commissioner a petition for the release of two of their leaders, led a few days later to the massacre of 1,000 Indians in a great square at Amritsar, in the Punjab district of India in the spring of 1919, says a report prepared by the Punjab subcommittee of the Indian national congress. Dissatisfaction among the natives first became apparent with thel passage of the Rowlat bills, designed to punish sedition. All over the country resolutions were passed by huge mass meetings protesting against the law and demanding its repeal. The trouble, the report states, began in earnest when two influential natives, Doctors Kltchlew and Shtyapal, were arrested and their friends heard they were to be deported.

Many Native* Killed. The report continues with a description of the fight between natives and soldiery, during which many of the former were killed and the survivors inflamed to such a pitch of fury that they returned into the, city and applied the torch to several principal buildings. The occurrence which directly led to the subsequent wholesale massacres in the Jalleanwala Bagh, 1 the report asserts, was a proclamation issued about this time by Gen. Dyer forbidding the natives to assemble publicly. “The public meeting in the Jalleanwala Bagh,” the report states, “was called before the proclamation had reached more than half the population. Shortly before the arrival of Gen. Dyer on the scene with ninety soldiers and two armored cars, Hans Raj had taken

| , . •> , charge of the meeting, audience numbering about 20,000. What happened afterward is given by the Indian investigators in Gen. Dyer’s owi/ words recorded during his testimony at the subsequent inquiry: “When you got to’ the bagh what did you do?” Geh, Dyer was asked. Opened Fire in 30 Seconds. “I opened fire. Immediately I had thought about the matter and don’t imagine it took me more than thirty seconds to make up my mind as to what my duty was,” he replied. “In firing, was it your object to disperse?” “No, sir. I was going to fire until they dispersed.” , “Did you continue firing after they had dispersed?” “Yes.” “After the crowd indicated that it was going to disperse, why did you hot stop?” “I thought it was my duty to go on until they had dispersed. If I fired a little, I should be wrong in firing at aH.” Continuing their report, the Investigators added “He, Gen. Dyer, said he continued firing for about ten minutes, until he had expended 1,650 rounds of ammunition. He said he had made no provi-

sion for aiding or removing the wound* ed. That was a medical question, he declared. “One eye witness said: ‘I saw hundreds of persons killed on the spot. The worst part of the whole thing was that firing was directed toward the gates through which the people were trying to run out. Many got trampled under the feet of the rushing crowds and thus lost their lives. There were heaps of bodies at different places. I think there must have been over 1,000.”’