Word: pir
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Dates: during 1942-1942
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...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...
...Pir is only 34, a little pock-marked and addicted to sadism, but a man after the Hurs' hearts. They are a cattle-grazing tribe of some 100,000, whose poor homeland of sand, scrub jungles and marshes has made them perverse. They are Moslems, but they build their mosques facing away from Mecca and orthodox Moslems call them Lurs (the Unholy). Some 8,000 Hurs, the Lurs, are joined in blood brotherhood in fanatic support of Pir of Pagaro, whom they regard as God. They dress in green, salute each other by folding their arms on their chests...
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...