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Officer who kept peace during Partition dead

London: Douglas Norman Moir, who made a mark by keeping communal peace in Punjab during the Partition, died last week. He was 89.

Lieutenant-Colonel Moir was the squadron commander of 7th Royal Tanks that was involved in maintaining peace during communal riots in 1947. He was stationed in Amritsar and, although the situation was extremely tense, he found that as soon as any of his armoured cars appeared in a cloud of dust the threatening crowds would hastily disperse, The Times said in its obituary.

Lt. Col. Moir was the son of a civil engineer working in Basra, Iraq. His mother had to travel to India for his birth in 1918 as local conditions at the time were considered too hazardous. He was sent to England for his education at Kelly College, Tavistock, and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, from where he was commissioned into the Royal Tank Corps, later the Royal Tank Regiment, in August 1938. — PTI

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