Page:Sketch of the Non-cooperation Movement by Babu Rajendra Prasad.pdf/14

 arrival, he opened fire which continued for 10 minutes directing it where the crowd was thickest. The fire continued till ammunition was exhausted. Some 5 to 6 hundred people were killed outright and three times the number wounded. The place being surrounded on all sides by high walls no one could escape. There was no warning given before firing and no care taken of the dead and wounded after it. Subsequently, Martial Law was declared in Amritsar, Lahore, Gujrat, and Llyalpur districts and what may be fitly described as a reign of terror followed. Large numbers of people were arrested and tried under Martial Law. Even respectable people were arrested. Some were flogged, others made to crawl on their bellies and unutterable horror committed including bombing of unarmed crowds from aeroplanes.

The news of Mahatma Gandhi’s arrest led to riots at Ahmedabad and other places also. But Martial Law was not continued there for more than a few days.

The Indemnity Act and the Hunter Committee.—The news of these horrors in the Punjab did not go abroad as a strict censorship was maintained. In course of time, however, when some months later, Martial Law was withdrawn, the news began to leak out and caused deep and widespread indignation throughout the country. A Committee of Enquiry was demanded and was ultimately appointed by the Government with Lord Hunter as its President. But before the Committee began its labours, the Government of India passed an Indemnity Act for the protection of its officers. There was a great deal of opposition to it in the Council, but Mahatma Gandhi, true to his principle of non-retaliation, supported the bill. When the Hunter Committee began to record evidence,