Wave of Sabotage In East Bengal
As Border Tension Rises
Malcolm W. Browne
Dacca, Nov, 4. As guerrillas in East Bengal intensified their campaign against the Pakistan authorities, the Pakistan Government said today that half a million Indian troops were now massed along the frontier for invasion. Both India and Pakistan have repeatedly declared that they will not launch an attack against the other. but it is scarce and the two sides have made elaborate preparations.
Dacca. The capital of East Pakistan, is holding an air raid drill tonight in which persons caught showing a light are liable to six months’ imprisonment. Most foreign military analysts tend to discount the likelihood of a general war between Pakistan and India, Instead, India is expected to continue helping the guerrillas inside East Pakistan, especially by keeping the Pakistan Army pinned down along the long frontier.
The most spectacular act of sabotage carried out by the guerrillas yesterday was the sinking in Chittagong of a large oil tanker that was about to sail for Dacca. Seven of the crew are missing. The guerrillas have recently been blowing up petrol and fuel storages to hamper the Pakistan Army, and have. so far sunk or damaged at least a dozen ships. In the past 24 hours they have also assassinated a leading Dacca lawyer in his home, robbed two Dacca banks at gun point of about £2,000, and set off three large bombs, a power station, leaving Dacca and two towns nearby without electricity to most of the day. Lack of power yesterday caused a water shortage in Dacca.
Electric power in Dacca and elsewhere in East Pakistan has been progressively disrupted by sabotage to the point where there are half a dozen power cuts every day. Skirmishes between troops or police and guerrillas in Dacca now occur nearly every day. Outside Dacca, government defenses depend mainly on the “Razakars,” a semi-trained militia regarded as poorly armed. Razakar volunteers posted at bridges and other military strongholds are prime targets of the guerrillas. – New York Times News Service.
Delhi, Nov. 4 … Air Marshall P. C. Lal, Chief of the Indian Air Staff, said today that India faces the danger of a Pakistan military attack at any time. He said, however, that if India were attacked airmen would not only repulse and drive out the Pakistanis but also “punish them suitably.”
Fred Emery writes from Washington :
Mrs. Indira Gandhi, the Indian Prime Minister, arriving today at the White House for talks with President Nixon, lost no time in appealing to Americans for a “wise impulse” to save the subcontinent from disaster. President Nixon paid warm tribute to the “higher morality” binding the Indian and American peoples in the causes of freedom, democracy and peace. He even invoked the brilliant “Indian summer” sunshine which he vowed, should forever shine over the two countries’ ties, despite “our very difficult problems.”
Such speeches are usually the occasions for hopeful generalities, but Mrs. Gandhi went to the heart of present problems. She said it was not easy to get away when India was “beleaguered”, and spoke of the “man-made tragedy of immense proportions” in East Pakistan. Referring to the “tormented faces” of the refugees from East Bengal, she said: “I have come here looking for a deeper understanding of the situation in our part of the world.” Her somber remarks set the tone for what are expected to be difficult discussions.
Indian sentiment is inflamed by the American attempt to maintain an “evenhandedness” towards India and Pakistan. Some American officials are appalled at what they see as India’s determination to turn a bad situation in East Pakistan into a disaster by giving assistance for a guerrilla war.
Reference: The Times 5, November, 1971