The Kohat tragedy

Lahore, Thursday, September 18, 1924

AT last we have some idea of the happenings at Kohat, though by no means an adequate idea. In our issue of yesterday, we published two statements on the incident, one supplied by our Special Representative on the basis of information received by him from a large number of refugees at Rawalpindi whom he had interviewed and the other made by Mr Bray in the Legislative Assembly on the basis of information supplied to the Government of India by the Chief Commissioner. Even a cursory perusal of the two statements suffices to make two things clear. One is that on several important points, they are widely discrepant, not an unnatural thing considering the sources from which the statements were ultimately derived; for while our own statement is avowedly based on information received from Hindu sources, the Chief Commissioner’s statement must likewise be based on information ultimately received from officials, most of whom were Muslims. The other is that both statements are far from being complete. Our statement is being supplemented today, while as regards the official statement, Mr Bray made it abundantly clear that even the Government was by no means satisfied with it and was of the opinion that the reports received were only provisional ones in which important points were left obscure. Indeed, the fact that the Chief Commissioner has wired to the Government what he calls the Hindu version of the origin to the trouble without saying whether and how far this version is true shows that he is himself far from being satisfied as to the adequacy or correctness of the information on which his statements to the Government are based.