§ MR. M. M. BHOWNAGGREE (Bethnal Green, N.E.)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he has received any detailed information from India regarding the murder at Poona of Mr. J. Rand, of the Civil Service, and of Lieutenant Ayerst, of the Commissariat Department; and whether he can state under what circumstances and by whom these diabolical acts were committed?
§ Loan GEORGE HAMILTONI have received a telegram giving more detailed information concerning this outrage, which was of a determined and premeditated character. Mr. Rand and Lieutenant Ayerst were returning from an entertainment at Government House, when two men at a lonely part of the wood sprang up upon the springs of their respective carriages, and fired at them with pistols. Lieutenant Ayerst was shot dead by the side of his wife, and Mr. Rand was severely wounded, but is doing well. Mr. Rand was head of the Plague Commission in Poona, and had with great skill and energy practically stamped out that pestilence. He had been violently denounced by name in some of the vernacular Press for his action in that capacity. Lieutenant Ayerst was not connected with the plague operations.