PESHAWAR: In October 1943 the execution was announced of four enemy agents who were members of a party landed by a Japanese submarine on the West Coast of India. Since then two more spies, who were connected with this party [and] had entered India by a different route, have paid the extreme penalty after trial under the Enemy Agents’ Ordinance. These were T.P. Kumaran Nair of Malabar and Ramu Thever of Madras, both of whom were living in Malaya at the outbreak of hostilities with Japan, says a Press communiqué.

Another case under the Enemy Agents’ Ordinance has also been recently concluded, in which five persons were sentenced to death. They were members of a party who had been landed by parachute in India with money and equipment, including wireless transmission sets. They were Ajaib Singh of Amritsar District , Zahur Ahmed of Sheikhupura District in the Punjab, S.L. Mazumdar of Chittagong District in Bengal, and Ardeshwar Rai and Sham Pande of Gorakhpur District in the United Provinces. Their sentences were confirmed by the Judge of the High Court who reviewed the cases, but the death sentences passed on the two last mentioned persons have been commuted to life. (Dawn, Delhi)

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2014