Page 75 - Records of Bahrain (7) (i)_Neat

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Disturbances and strikes, 1953-1954 61 I
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across the football field up to the north v/eot tower. Some
of the crowd got into the garden in front of Superintendent
Hyde’s bungalow. Before going into the compound many of the
crowd had broken into Turani’s scrap yard and armed themselyes

with sticks, pieces of iron piping and leaves of old motor
car springs. As the crowd pressed on towards the north west
tower of the Fort a party of about fifteen police which later
increased to about forty v/ith three havildars endeavoured to

persuade the crowd to retire, Hayildar'Hamdd Bin Rashid who
was unarmed went forward alone to the crowd and requested
them to retire. He argued with them and begged the sensible
ones among them to persuade the more foolish ones to go away.
He had ordered his men not to move without orders and he had
warned the machine gunners on the north west tower not to fire.

The croY/d appeared to be in an aggressive mood. They said
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they had come to the Fort to get v/hat tl^ey ^nt and that if
they could not get into the fort they v/ould go to the families1
quarters and attack them. While Havildar Hamad bin Rashid

was endeavouring to persuade the crowd to disperse, two
revolver shots were heard coming from the crowd. One police
v/itness has said that he saw a man with a revolver fire ty/o
shots one of v/hich v/as aimed at the witness and the second was
fired as he was running towards the fort. We have no

corroboration of this statement, but it is clear to us that
two shots were fired from the crowd. By this time it was quite
clear that the police were in a very excited condition and
immediately the revolver shots were heard the firing broke

out from among the forty policemen congregated near the north­
west tower. Then firing was taken up by police on the
verandah of Superintendent Hyde’s bungalow, from the roof of
the bungalow, and from the north-east tower. There was one
witness who said he fired three rounds from this tower into

the air in order to frighten the people. Ali bin Hassan Sharrah
and the other tv/o machine gunners on the North West tower did
not fire. /When