§ Mr. SCURRasked the Under-Secretary of State for India if he can give the number of persons imprisoned, interned, or detained, for political offences in India; also how many are imprisoned as a result of convictions after trial; and, how many are detained without trial or charge?
§ Mr. RICHARDSThe following are the approximate figures of the number of persons imprisoned as a result of conviction after trial for offences of a political character:
- (1) There are 30 or more persons now in gaol who have been convicted of sedi-
1035 tion or causing enmity between classes, or conspiracy against the King. - 2. There are between 70 and 90 persons in the United Provinces convicted of offences arising out of political agitations. It is possible that there may be a few more in other Provinces, but certainly not many, except perhaps in the Punjab.
- 3. There is still a number, probably amounting to some thousands still, of Moplahs imprisoned as the result of conviction in connection with open rebellions. About 243 more of these Moplahs have been placed under restraint away from Malabar in the same connection.
With reference to the last part of the question, the number of persons interned as State prisoners under Regulation 3 of 1818 is 23. All of these cases in which there was any room for doubt as to the actions of the individuals arrested have been examined by two Judges of the Calcutta High Court.
The above figures do not include the Sikhs who are under trial or already convicted in cases in the Punjab caused by the Akali agitation. According to the latest information available there are about 120 under trial, while rather less than 180 have been convicted in recent cases.