Page:Hyderabad in 1890 and 1891; comprising all the letters on Hyderabad affairs written to the Madras Hindu by its Hyderabad correspondent during 1890 and 1891 (IA hyderabadin1890100bangrich).pdf/44

Page 36 HYDERABAD, 13th December 1890.

The local papers are full of a horrible murder committed in the city. A native Christian woman (a Mahomedan convert) was in the absence of her husband, decayed into an out-of-the- way part of the city on Saturday evening, last, and there, stripped of the valuables about her person, was inhumanly tortured to death. The mangled heap was carefully packed up in a box and sent the next day to the Hyderabad Goods Shed to be booked to Lahore as a consignment of wearing apparel. The booking office being closed-it being a Sunday-the box was taken back to the city, but it was brought to the Goods Shed on Monday, the 8th instant, and was duly booked; and a receipt being granted therefor, the consigenee, by name Abool Hoossain, walked away without in the least betraying himself. Hours passed and the murderous deed remained unsuspected until the stench sent forth by the dead body in an advanced state of decomposition attracted attention. Then the city Kotwal and others were sent for, and in their presence the box was opened and the mutilated corpse was pulled out of a gunny bag in which it had been tied up to unfold its frightful tale. Those concerned in the murder including the man who presented the package at the Goods shed to be booked to Lahore, have-thanks to the energy of our city Kotwal-since been apprehended. The chief actor of this blood-curdling tragedy is said to be a pleader related to the person who acted as crown-prosecutor in the first of the Treasury frauds cases.

You know that roughly speaking seven-ninths of the po- pulation of His Highness the Nizam's Dominions, are Hindus. And common sense would allow to the interests and comforts of this vast majority a larger share of the attention of the Ruler than that devoted to any other section of the people. But what is it that we see here? The paucity-if not the utter absence -of Hindus in the higher grades of the services, is striking and takes every new comer by surprise. And as if the systematic withholding of official favour were not enough, the Hindus