مذكرة عن السيرة المهنية للسير توماس إدوارد روجرز [و‎‎٥‎١] (١١٨/١٠١)

6
violence. I went at once to the City Police Station where further reports of
rioting, arson and atrocities kept coming in. The scale of the outbreak, which
was mainly in the Hindu and Sikh quarter, was such that the police could not
exercise their authority at more than a few points and as this became clear to
lawbreakers they became increasingly heedless of restraint. In a short time
the situation was out of hand and small groups and individuals were killing,
maiming, burning and looting almost at will. Nor could the firefighting services
cope with widespread fires breaking out in rapid succession and in some cases
feeding each other.
I witnessed some of the many terrible atrocities committed that night
particularly against Sikhs whose women were often horribly mutilated as the mobs
lost all control. As we tried desperately to restore some kind of order, or at
least demonstrate that forces of law and order were still in being if greatly
outnumbered, I recall two or three young British officers, who saw the blazing
town from the distant Staff College, coming to help me like some Midwest posse
rallying to a sheriff's call. Indeed like a posse we must have looked going
about the bazaar in an effort to bring men crazed with communal fury and bloodlust
to some realisation of what they were doing. But there were too many of them and
too few police to saturate a wide area where so many lawless acts were being
committed at the same time. Small units of police dispersed widely could be more
target than deterrent although even in conditions of blind mob fury the common
religion of most rioters and the police protected the latter to an extent but
also tempered their severity. In one incident Henry Oliver, the Assistant
Superintendent of Police (and the only British police officer besides his very
senior chief, H.D.M. Scott) was struck over the forehead with an axe. The gash
lost him the sight of an eye and left a deep scar but could easily have cost him
his life.