The official and non-official versions of the events on the 21st in connection with the Travancore students’ strike differ in so many vital particulars that it seems necessary to institute a searching enquiry into the whole incident. For one thing, the non-official version suggests that the students were amenable to the persuasion of the District Magistrate and that the Police and the Military engaged the “mob” in spite of the District Magistrate’s order by sign of hand not to charge the students. The official version on the other hand seeks to make out that the Police Commissioner was not aware of the wishes of the District Magistrate, if not indeed of his presence and that, in any case, the Police Commissioner was not the person that ordered the forces to charge. In this material particular, the Government account is flatly contradicted by the non-official account whose signatories are, some of them, eye-witnesses and all certainly responsible citizens. Nor is this the only serious difference in the accounts. The Press Communique attempts to suggest that sharp weapons were not used and seeks support for this theory in the statement that there were no such serious wounds among student casualties as to require treatment in the Hospital. Not only is this suggestion diametrically opposed to the non-official version which mentions casualties and points to blood stains, but it also stands challenged by the statement of a correspondent published elsewhere that student casualties were refused admission in the hospitals.
