On a fighting patrol with the guerillas
BAREFOOT SECESSIONISTS TAKE ON TANKS AND GUNS ALTHOUGH
Large numbers of East Pakistani secessionist leaders have been reported killed, and with wholesale bloodshed continuing, several members of the movement’s high command are alive and have formed a cabinet. .
They include Tajuddin Ahmed, second in command to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, whose Awami League took the steps for independence that brought West Pakistan’s millitary crackdown.
In prison
In an East Pakistan border area visited by this correspondent, at least six secessionist leaders met to name Ahmed Prime Minister and Defence Minister of the State they call Bangla Desh or Bengali nation.
They proclaimed Sheikh Mujib their President, although privately the secessionist leaders acknowledge that he is in prison in West Pakistan.
While the Central Government, which is dominated by West Pakistanis, continues to announce that the situation is calm in the east and conditions are returning to normal a far different picture emerges on the scene.
Daily battles are reliably reported in many sectors. Hordes of East Pakistanis have fled the cities to seek refuge or join the secessionist army, and thousands of refugees are crossing into India for temporary haven.
Dead leaders
This correspondent saw Pakistani soldiers burning villages to deny the resistance forces cover or hiding places.
As the smoke from the thatch and bamboo huts billowed up on the outskirts of the city of Comilla, circling vultures descended on the bodies of peasants, already being picked apart by dogs and crows.
There is no way of knowing exactly how many of East Pakistan’s 75 million
Bengalis the army has killed, but authorrative reports from many sources agree that the figure is in the tens of thousands.
The Central Government officiaily bans all foreign newsmen from East Pakistan.
But from the evidence available in secessionist held rural areas- some of which are occasionally contested by the army- the Pakistani Armed forces have killed leaders and potential leaders of East Pakistan and shattered the economic base of the region in their effort to crush the independence movement.
With the aid of air and naval bombardment, the army has destroyed food supplies, tea factories, jute mills and natural gas fields- the economic bases of East Pakistan.
Short of arms
Authoritative reports indicate that perhaps 20 to 25 per cent of the people are left in such towns as the capital and Dacca, Chittagong and Comilla.
Smaller centres are also largely deserted. Dacca had a population of about 1.5 million. Chittagong aout 400,000 to 500,000 and Comilla about 100,000.
In the eastern part of East Pakistan firing can be heard every day in virtually every sector.
The secessionist army is desperately short of trained officers arms, ammuntion, vehicles and basic supplies. Some of the men are barefoot.
The heaviest weapon the secessionists have in any numbers is the three inch mortar, although they have captured a few heavy guns.
Tinu i akistan military are using jet fighterbombers, heavy artillery and gunboatsmostly supplied by the United States, the Soviet Union and Communist China.
The basic wespons of the secessionists are old Enfield and Garand rifles as and some Chinese-made automatic rifles and machine guns- which the Bengalis have either captured or had brought with them when they escaped from their units.
Fewer than 10 per cent of the 300,000 men in the Pakistan armed forces were Bengails. Nearly all of those who were not killed by the West Pakistani troops in the first days have joined the secessionist army and consitute its only trained elements.
The best available figures indicate that the trained core consists of some 3,000 members of the East Bengal Regiment, which was regular unit, and some 9,000 members of the East Pakistan Rifles, a paramilitary unit one of whose duties was to man the observation posts on the border with India.
Punjabis
The rest of the secessionist force is made up of armed policemen, home guards, other poorly trained local militia and raw recruits.
Before the political crisis began to mount the Pakistani Army had about 25,000 troops in East Pakistan. Large numbers of reinforcements have been flown over from West Pakistan, which is separated from the Eastern province by over a thousand miles of Indian territory.
Some estimates put the number of West Pakistani troops in East Pakistan at 60,000 to 80,000, most of them Punjabis and Pathans.
Though the average amount of ammunition carried by the guerillia riflemen is 30 to 40 rounds, their determination seems high.
Two days ago West Pakistani troops, as they had been for several days, were burning villages on the outskirts of Comilla less than a mille from the Indian border.
Their apparent purpose is to remove all cover within a five mile radius of the airstrip. Reports indicate they are doing the same all over East Pakistan.
Khaled Musharrof, the 32-year-old guerilla commander in the area, sent out a 10man patrol to harass the Pakistani troops. This correspondent accompanied the patrol, three of whose members had no shoes.
Using rice field to advantage, the patrol stalked to within 200 yards of the soldiers, who were throwing phosphorous grenades into thatch huts.
The Bengalis, who had some Chinese-made automatic weapons, opened fire, which the soldiers immediately returned. The shooting was nearly constant for about 20 minutes, after which the Bengalis came scrambing back to safety over an embankment.
The co-ordination of guerilla units is poor and in some instances nonexistent. The Bengalis are now devoting themselves to guerilla tactics while the army has gained control of most of the major cities and towns, including the cantonments and airfields.
ref. The Strait Times, 15.4.1971