It has been alleged that the Japanese had instigated the Malays into clashing with the Chinese guerillas by the former with arms when the surrender became known. But there is little evidence of this. Undoubtedly, the Japanese policy of racial favouritism had been partly responsible for the outbreak of racial clashes. The Japanese had at first favoured the Malays and later , when they needed the help of Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army, they had favoured the Indians as well, while discriminating against the Chinese at large. Thereby they played both the Malays and the Indians against the Chinese. Undeniably, the Chinese were the most persecuted community in Malaya during the Japanese occupation. They lost many lives in the sook chings, the bloody massacres which the Japanese carried out whenever and wherever they found any evidence of anti-Japanese resistance. The first racial clash broke out in the Muar and Batu Pahat areas on 21 August, a week after the Japanese surrender, when widespread attacks by Malays on Chinese began. The British Military Administration(BMA) in a report on the incidents claimed that the Malays had been provoked by the harsh treatment they had received at the hands of the MPAJA guerillas. The violence spread further with counter-attacks by the Chinese on the Malays. In both cases the victims were mainly innocent people in no way connected with what had happened.