Kohat

Lahore, Friday, October 17, 1924

WE are bound to repeat that the position as regards the Kohat “investigation” as disclosed in the recent Simla communique is far from satisfactory. “Investigations,” says the communique “have been somewhat delayed by the failure of the Kohat Hindus, now in Ralwanpindi, to appear before the Chief Commissioner as requested, but satisfactory progress with the inquiry has nevertheless been made.” It is not at all clear how satisfactory progress with the enquiry could have been made at all if, as it stated in the communique, the Kohat Hindus new in Rawalpindi have failed to appear before the Chief Commissioner. Is it meant that the enquiry has so far been ex parte and that it is the ex parte enquiry which the authorities consider satisfactory in view of the circumstances of the case? Or is it meant that although the Kohat Hindus, now at Rawalpindi, have failed to appear before the Chief Commissioner as requested, they have nevertheless helped the investigation in some other and undefined way? Or, finally, does the communique seek to convey the impression that although the Kohat Hindus have rendered no help in the investigation, the authorities have nevertheless had sufficient impartial evidence of what actually took place from other sources to make it possible for them to regard the progress of the enquiry as satisfactory? If ever there was a matter to which the famous dictum of the Court of Directors, that it is not enough that justice should be done, but that the parties must be convinced that justice has been done, was strictly applicable, that matter is the present.