IOR/R/15/6/372

This volume contains papers and correspondence relating to communal disturbances that took place in Gwadur Gwadar between members of the Khoja/Aga Khani Ismaili community, who were British subjects, and the Baluchi community, who were subjects of the Sultan of Muscat and Oman. Specifically, much of the volume concerns an incident in which a Khoja Jamat-Khana (place of worship) and graveyard were defiled with human excrement and the murder of a Khoja shopkeeper named Ghulam Ali. A hand drawn sketch of the Jamat-Khana and graveyard is contained on folio 21.

Much of the correspondence in the file is between the Political Agency in Muscat, the British Agency in Gwadur and the Political Residency in Bushire, but it also contains a limited number of letters exchanged between the Political Agency in Muscat and the Shia Imami Ismailia Council in Gwadur (which contain Gujarati on their letterhead), Fazal Rahimtoola (a representative of Sultan Muhammad Shah, Aga Khan III), and the Council of Ministers of the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman. The correspondence received from the Council of Ministers is in Arabic and accompanied by English translations. The volume also contains a single telegram sent by Aga Khan III to the Foreign Secretary of the Government of India concerning the situation in Gwadur (folio 50).

In addition to correspondence, the file contains a report that was compiled by the Minister of Justice of the Sultanate of Oman and Muscat, Shaikh Zubeir, and the Political Agent in Muscat, Trenchard Craven Fowle, concerning their investigation into the death of Ghulam Ali (folios 214-254, with a duplicate printed copy on folios 293-304). On folio 254, the report contains a sketch of a section of Gwadur town where the property of the slain Ghulam Ali was located. The file also contains a number of witness statements recorded by the British Agency in Gwadur regarding the murder, some of which are in Urdu and Sindhi (in Khojki script).