File 1341/1921 Pt 1 'Khorassan Intelligence Summaries 1921-1922' [‎381v] (410/1080)

r A party of 15 Cossacks under a former regular officer has been drafted
to Quchan. Their presence there has provoked no incident. Their mis
sion is to secure by tactful means a surrender of the Government rifles and
ammunition held by the Kurds and surrendered to them by the gendarmes.
Another party of Cossacks has gone to Qazimabad in place of the
Barbaris who deserted from there.
The 150 Kurd horsemen who were at Chinaran, half way from IMeshed
on the Quchan-Meshed road, have been withdrawn to Quchan.
Nasrat-i-Lashkar, Commander of the Boad Guards operating between
Meshed and Shahrud, has been ordered back to his duties. It has been
reported that on two recent occasions the Teheran mail has been held up by
rnhhprs
6
The mourning ceremony on the fortieth day after the decease of
Muhammad Taqi Khan was held in the house of Major Mahmud Khan who
is described as weeping copiously. Many other Gendarme officers were
present. The more public ceremony at the tomb was attended only by a
Turk or two and a few gendarmes. Thus is the public apathetic towards
what a month ago they were prepared to accept as a cause.
Unrest. —A feature of the week under review has been the resort to a
distribution and the placarding of anonymous letters and notices. Some of
these threaten consequences if the political prisoners are not released,
others seek to victimise loyal officers, while one poster has been addressed to
the Swedish Chief of Police, threatening his life if he be not on his best
behaviour. These manoeuvres are ascribed to Major Mahmud Khan and his
clique of discontented officers.
The movements of the former are now being watched by order of
Hussein Aqa Mir Panch.
Bolsheviks.^ —On account of the contingency of Meshed—a city so near
to Bolshevik Russia—attracting political undesirables from that country,
the local police have inaugurated certain new measures empowering them to
demand from householders reports on all new arrivals within their doors.
The enforcement of this order—from which the owners or lessees of sarais,
chai khanas, and hotels are not exempt—gives the police many opportu
nities for pilfering and extortion. A deputation of householders has
accordingly waited on the Aghazada in order to protest against the new
ordinance.
The measure is a very useful one, pace the grievances it engenders,
and if worked efficiently should assist very considerably to control the move
ments of revolutionaries and propagandists.
Haji Abdul Hamid of Baku, whose presence in Meshed was noted in
last week’s Summary, held a meeting in his house on the 18th. Several
Turks attended. He gave a lengthy anti-British lecture, in the course of
which he said the British must be credited with all the disasters and miseries
prevailing in Azerbaijan, Persia, and elsewhere in the Mussalman world.
He stated that the Indian public were in alliance with the Bolsheviks and
would soon revolt against British rule.
This man is a relation of Ghulam Mehdi, Chemist, and a propagandist.
He is returning to Baku.
Ghulam Reza Tibi and Aqa Bala, Turk, suspected Bolshevik messen
gers, arrived from Askhabad on the 18th and were due to return on the 20th.
Meshedi Abbas, a barber, who was sent to Askhabad by Ghulam Mehdi,
Chemist, returned from there on the 17th and was arrested.
Arms. —An attempt is being made to get in all rifles absent from the
arms register. A police notice has been published enjoining all with such
to return them within five days of the issue of the order with an alternative
of severe punishment. The purchase of Government rifles and firearms has
been declared illegal.