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PAKISTAN : HINDU ALTERNATIVE TO PAKISTAN
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happened about the middle of June in Bihar and Orissa; but July witnessed no fewer than eight riots of which the most serious occurred in Multan in the Punjab, on the occasion of the annual Muharram celebrations. Thirteen killed and twenty-four wounded was the toll taken by this riot. But August was to see worse rioting still. In that month, nine riots occurred, two of them resulting in heavy loss of life. In a riot in Bettiah, a town in Bihar and Orissa, arising out of a dispute over a religious procession, eleven persons were killed and over a hundred injured, whilst the passage of a procession in front of a mosque in Bareilly in the United Provinces was the occasion of rioting in which fourteen persons were killed and 165 were injured. Fortunately, this proved to be the turning point in inter-communal trouble during the year, and September witnessed only 4 riots. One of these, however, the riot in Nagpur in the Central Provinces on September 4th was second only to Lahore riot in seriousness and in the damage which it caused. The spark, which started the fire, was the trouble in connection with a Muslim procession, but the materials for the combustion had been collected for some time. Nineteen persons were killed and 123 injured were admitted to hospitals as a result of this riot, during the course of which many members of the Muslim community abandoned their homes in Nagpur.
A feature of Hindu-Muslim relations during the year which was hardly less serious than the riots was the number of murderous outrages committed by members of one community against persons belonging to the other. Some of the most serious of these outrages were perpetrated in connection with the agitation relating to Rangila Rasul and Risala Vartman, two publications containing most scurrilous attack on the Prophet Muhammed and as a result of them, a number of innocent persons lost their lives, sometimes in circumstances of great barbarity. In Lahore a series of outrages against individuals led to a state of great excitement and insecurity during the summer of 1927.
The excitement over the Rangila Rasul* case had by now travelled far from its original centre and by July had begun to
- Rangila Rasul was written in reply to Sitaka Chinala —a pamphlet written by a Muslim alleging that Sita, wife of Rama, the hero of Ramayana, was a prostitute.