Sentence was delivered on Tuesday by the special tribunal of
the High Court at Bombay appointed to try the seven Brahmans implicated in the murder of Mr. Jackson, the Collector of Nasik. After a trial which lasted sixteen days, Kanhere, the actual assassin ; Karve, leader in the murder conspiracy; and Deshpande, who with Karve accompanied Kanhere to the theatre, were sentenced to death. Three active members of the secret society which planned the murder were sentenced to transportation for life, and a friend of Kanhere's, who knew that the murder would be committed, to imprisonment for two years. The accused were convicted chiefly by their own confessions. Mr. Jackson, who was murdered on the eve of his transference to Bombay, was not only a distinguished scholar, but devoted to the natives, in whose loyalty he reposed the utmost confidence. Yet though generally respected and beloved, he was marked down for assassination by a secret society, most of whom belonged to one of the most powerful branches of the highest of all Hindu castes—the Chitpawan Brahmans—and the crime was the deliberate outcome of consultations extending over a period of three months. Yet not a single warning or hint reached the authorities, and since the murder no practical help has been afforded them in tracing the conspiracy to its source.
Previous page
