Word: pir
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...unholy, free-loving, fierce-fighting Hurs of Sind, unlike most haters of the British in India, indulged their hate in murderous rampages. Their sadistic, lecherous chief, the pock-marked Pir of Pagaro, ruled them from a fortress town called the "Golden Kot." There, behind walls 60 feet high and twelve feet thick, the Pir indulged his perverted whims with palaces, harems, luxury baths, torture chambers, a gold-and-marble throne...
...goad to action was a new outbreak of rapine and train-wrecking in protest against the jailing of the Hurs' Robin Hood leader, the lecherous, pock-marked Pir of Parago (TIME, June 15). Coordinating land and air forces, the British dropped parachutists on the edge of the Sind desert. From there they moved west toward the Hurs' jungle stronghold in Makhi Dhand, the "honey swamp." A column of camelry moved in from the north. From the east, Punjab constabulary in assault boats drew the trap tighter. A motorized infantry unit completed boxing the jungle...
Their turbaned Pir believes that he is the pock-marked man of ancient prophecy who is to become King of Sind. He has no recognized relatives, and indeed recognition would be difficult, since the Hurs share each other's wives, sisters and daughters. But Pir of Pagaro has sons, and he once nearly killed one who came before him barefooted...
Years ago Pir of Pagaro got angry at a boy favorite, Ibrahim, of his court at Pir-Jo-Goth. Pir had Ibrahim's eyelashes and eyebrows plucked out, his face blackened with soot, and padlocked him in a box which was opened only when he was fed. Ibrahim escaped, only to be hunted with hounds and imprisoned again in a smaller box. Finally three concubines told the police about Ibrahim. The found him in his box, "looking like a ghost, pale as death, and smelling like a polecat...
...Pir of Pagaro was brought to trial charged with kidnapping, torture and murder. One of India's sleekest defense counsels, President Mohamed Ali Jinnah of the Moslem League, got him off with an eight-year sentence. Paroled in 1936, he was confined to the city of Karachi, from which he escaped last year to prey upon witnesses who had testified against him. Shortly he was arrested again, for sabotaging telegraph lines, and jailed in Nagpur. But 1,000 miles away his shadow is still dark over Sind...