HINDUSTAN STANDARD, NOVEMBER 3, 1971
MOST OF THE BENGALIS IN PAK HC RUN TO FREEDOM
From Our Special Correspondent
New Delhi, November. 2- Ten of the remaining 11 Bengali employees of the Pakistani High Commission here with their families today escaped to freedom from the High Commission premises, described by the chief of the Bangladesh mission as “a butcher’s house.”
The other employee Mr. Hossain Ali identified as personal assistant to Mr. Abdul Ghani the head of the Pakistan intelligence net-work in India, could not make it as he was mercilessly beaten by West Pakistani personnel and dragged inside from the gate through which the others made their last run to freedom.
While Mr. Hossain Ali lay unconscious inside the High Commission compound with his wife and three daughters by his side his two teen-aged sons came out with others. The wife of another employee Mr. Khaliluddin personal assistant to the Pakistani Air adviser along with her two daughters and a minor son could not come out. However, after nearly two hours she was allowed to come out of the mission premises with her children and join her husband and two sons who had escaped earlier.
As Mr. H. R. Chowdhury head of the Bangladesh Mission with his two colleagues, Mr. K. M. Shehabuddin and Mr. Amjadul Haq rushed to the spot on receipt of information the Pakistanis from inside the High Commission compound began showering brickbats on the Bengali employees sitting outside on the road with whatever little belongings they could manage to bring out.
Mr. Chowdhury and his two colleagues with the help of newsmen foreign and Indian and the police led the women and the children to safety from the shower of brickbats. They also carried their belongings lying scattered near the gate.
The whole drama started early in the morning when the entire Bengali personnel of the High Commission along with their families collected near a side gate of the High Commission. Before they could make good their escape scaling the low wall a large number of West Pakistanis headed by Group Captain Azim Daudpota. Air Adviser Mr. Abdul Ghani, First Secretary, identified as the head of the Pakistani Intelligence network and Mr. Ahmed Zabeed Shah also a first Secretary described as the man in charge of Pakistani espionage in Kashmir pounced on them and stalled beating them mercilessly.
Some of the Bengali employees jumped the wall and came on the street outside and started shouting “Jai Bangla”. Others began throwing their children over the wall to freedom. Meanwhile, some Indian-policemen attracted by the shouts, collected near the gate. The Pakistanis then opened the gate and allowed the Bengalis to go out. But Mr.
Hossain Ali by then was so severely beaten that he was not in a position to come out.
Other Bengalis alleged that Mr. Hossain Ali was dragged inside and kept inside a room in the quarters unconscious. When a count was taken it was found that Mr. Khaliluddin’s wife with two daughters and a son along with Mr. Hossain Ali’s family could not come out.
Mr. H. R. Chowdhury told newsmen that the entire Bengali members of the High Commission staff had been expressing their desire for the last several months to opt for the Bangladesh Government. But they had been kept forcibly inside the Commission’s premises.
After defection by some Bengali employees from the mission, the High Commissioner ostensibly decided to remove all restrictions and to allow the members of the staff to go out if they so wished with their families. Mr. Chowdhury said that the decision was taken in his presence when he was still working with the High commission and as head of the Pakistan chancery the order was issued under his signature.
Mr. Chowdhury said that this was also the understanding the Pakistani High Commission gave to the Government of India.
Apparently, the Pakistan High Commission did not want the Bengalis to take the order literally. When the Bengali employees asked by the West Pakistanis where they were going to join the Bangladesh Government the West Pakistanis began beating them mercilessly. Some of the employees were later taken to hospital.
The two sons of Mr. Hossain Ali who is still confined within the mission premises and other Bengalis who had escaped from the High Commission began a round-the-clock sit-in in front of the High Commission demanding the release of Mr. Hossain Ali and his family.
The Bangladesh mission chief warned the Pakistanis that if within 48 hours, Mr. Hossain Ali was not released not a single West Pakistani in Bangladesh would be safe in the hands of the Mukti Bahini.
The Bengali members lodged a complaint against the non-diplomat of West Pakistani members of the High Commission with the Chanakayapuri police station here for assaulting them. Under international law the non-diplomatic staff of any mission are not immune from the law of the land.
One of the first acts of the Bengali staff after their escape from what they described as the “Pakistani concentration camp in the High Commission” was to switch their allegiance to the legally and popularly elected government of the Sovereign Independent Republic of Bangladesh. To them, Pakistan was “dead and buried”.
Most of them confirmed that the West Pakistani personnel inside the High Commission were thoroughly demoralized with the growing success of the Mukti Bahini in Bangladesh.