PATRIOT, OCTOBER 11, 1971
YAHYA PUPPETS IN EAST UNSURE OF POLL
Having announced a plan for transfer of power General Yahya Khan is now sitting on it. He has said that elections for the 79 seats of the National Assembly from East Bengal would be held in the first week of December.
The reason given for this gap of two months between the filing of nomination papers and the holding of the elections is the need to prepare new electoral rolls. Mr. Bhutto has already complained that under the pretext of preparing new electoral rolls, “progressive and patriotic elements may be eliminated from the voters’ lists.” In any case, the lists are only of an academic interest.
The junta is certain to make sure that only its stooges are declared “elected”. Any talk about the mechanics of election or ensuring their fairness or freedom sounds factions under the present circumstances. Not even a stooge party like the Jamat-eIslami thinks that fair and free elections would or could be held.
Impossible
To quote Professor Ghulam Azam, chief of the Jamat-e Islami in East Bengal the conditions are such that electioneering or any other political activity would be impossible in the next six months or so.
Apparently the regime appears to be fully aware of this difficulty. Hence the puppet Governor Dr. A. M. Malik has been quoted as having said that “the Government will do everything possible to complete the process of elections according to the schedule. But knowing the present circumstances no one can say with certainty that they can be held according to the time-table.”
There is also another snag which has been noticed by political observers. This is implied in the talk that very soon many more by-elections in Bangladesh may be necessitated. Reports appearing in papers like the Pakistan Times, Lahore, and the Pakistan Observer, Dacca, have noted that very few among the 88 members of the National Assembly who have been cleared by the Government are willing to come and declare their loyalty to the regime.
According to a columnist of the Pakistan Times, this would necessitate “fresh elections almost in the whole of East Bengal”. The official machinery has, however, fixed dates for the by-elections only for the 79 seats which have already been declared vacant. This means that the process of electioneering would be stretched to February or March next year.
General Yahya Khan has already declared that unless the elections are completed, the National Assembly would not meet and the question of transfer of power would not arise….
Pakistani newspapers have quoted Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan as having said that this sympathy and support for Sheikh Mujibur Rahman has been the main cause of the continuing trouble in East Bengal. According to him if there had been a concerted attempt to quell the trouble in East Bengal the situation would have become normal by now.
Stooge Complains
“But due to powerful elements working almost in every sphere of life, attempts to crush the anti-national forces in Bangladesh have not been successful so far.”
An East Bengali stooge of the regime Maulvi Farid Ahmed, has gone a step further. He has complained that “powerful elements in West Pakistan were helping the Awami League revolt in East Bengal. Maulvi Farid Ahmed who has been installed by the military regime as the President of the Pakistan Council for Peace and Welfare has been quoted by pro-military newspapers like the Imroze of Lahore and the Jung of Karachi as having said that severe trouble was also likely to break out in West Pakistan on the pattern of what had happened in East Pakistan.
Maulvi Farid Ahmed who also heads the Nizam-E-Islam Party in East Bengal claimed that even the Government was in possession of authentic data about the way some of the very powerful elements in West Pakistan are continuing to help the Awami League financially, materially and morally. The Government had not taken any steps against them only because of the fear that the situation might worsen with such an action he disclosed.
Talking about the situation in Bangladesh, Maulvi Farid Ahmed said that the conditions continue to be far from normal. Attacks by anti-national elements under the influence of the Awami League have increased. Inspite of the heroic work done by the army pro-Pakistani elements have to face danger to life and property at every step.
Maulvi Farid Ahmed also said that during the last few months hundreds of proPakistani “patriots” had to lose their lives at the hands of the Awami League guerillas.
Maulvi Farid Ahmed’s statement assumes significance because of two reasons. Firstly, it discloses the great sympathy for the Bangladesh cause West Pakistan. This also gives the lie to the claim of the regime that the trouble in Bangladesh was due barely to the help “the miscreants”.
Secondly, Maulvi Farid Ahmed has categorically admitted that the resistance movement in East Bengal was growing much stronger and the freedom-fighters has made hundreds of collaborators of the regime the targets of their wrath.