Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Under-Secretary of State for India, with reference to the recent arrest and imprisonment without bail of Khan Bahadur Khawaja Mohamed Khan, Chief of Hoti, upon a serious charge. (1) whether he was aware that the Advocate-General, in asking leave to withdraw the case against him in the High Court of Bombay, stated that he had no grounds whatever to conduct the case against him, and that he was at a loss to know why the frontier authorities had arrested him and sent him down to Bombay; whether he was aware that his lordship the judge of the High Court of Bombay, in discharging the accused, stated that the Khan was arrested on evidently nobody's complaint, that he had been subjected to many indignities, and that the whole procedure seemed to be most irregular and arbitrary; and whether the Secretary of State would 1392 order an immediate inquiry into all the circumstances connected with the case and consider what reparation can be made to the Khan; (2) whether the Viceroy and Governor-General of India had issued a notification that no Government servants should join any movement for collecting subscriptions for universities and colleges; whether he was aware that on the 7th April, 1911, Sirdar Mir Alam Khan, Sahib, E.A.C., Peshawar, and Maulvi Ghulam Hassan Khan, sub-registrar and honorary magistrate, Peshawar, addressed a letter to Khan Bahadur Khawaja Mohamed Khan, of Hoti, asking him with menaces to subscribe to the fund for establishing the proposed Islamia College, at Peshawar, adding that this college was the uppermost idea in the mind of the Chief Commissioner and that, though the Khan was personally against the scheme, nevertheless, by subscribing to it, he would remove the many suspicions existing about his person; whether he was aware that the Khan refused to subscribe to the scheme and that shortly afterwards he was arrested, imprisoned without bail, and subjected to many indignities on a charge which the judge of the High Court of Bombay dismissed, after condemning the whole procedure as most irregular and arbitary; and whether he proposed to take any action in this matter; and (3) whether his attention had been called to the Manual of Pashto, compiled by Major G. Roos Keppel; whether he was aware that this book contains, on pages 203, 213, 217, and 231, offensive personal allusions to Khan Bahadur Khawaja Mohamed Khan, of Hoti; whether the author of this book is now Sir George Roos Keppel, Chief Commissioner of the North-West Frontier Province; whether he was aware that the name of the Chief Commissioner was used in a letter addressed to the Khan by two officials demanding with menaces a subscription to the proposed Islamia College at Peshawar, and that after the Khan had refused to subscribe he was arrested on a false charge and subjected to many indignities; and whether he proposed to take any action in the matter?
§ The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Montagu)As regards these three questions, my hon. Friend will see by referring to the answer I gave to the Noble Lord the Member for Hornsey on this subject, that I have no information, but I have already sent a letter of inquiry.