A Close look at Bangla Deash
I saw with my own eyes how tragic it is for people to be driven away from their homes and live as refugees in a foreign country. In Calcutta alone there are about 500,000 refugees from East Pakistan living in camps or huts for temporary shelter. Hundreds of thousands of children, babies and pregnant women are sheltered in special camps, where they are cared for and receive medical treatment. And all this is done by volunteer doctors, nurses or social workers, while girls who uses to be teachers back home, are given the task to teach in barracks used as schools.
Imagine what these people, who are so thin that their bones can be seen, have gone through. They have been pursued by the Pakistani army, or have seen their relatives being shot to death, and afterwards had to walk hundreds of kilometres for two or three weeks to save their lives. This is the work of a totalitarian regime run by the military junta of Yahya Khan. A regime so cruel, it could not tolerate the emergence of nationalism under the leadership of Mujibur Rahman, who managed to obtain the majority vote of the people in East Bengal.
The general election has revived nationalism or patriotism among the people, youth, students, workers and peasants. All these people are demanding justice and security to obtain a humane standard of living. They are asking the government in Karachi to think more in the interests of the people far from West Pakistan, because the government has been discriminative in its actions. Why are the people of East Pakistan not given positions in government, military, economic and social institutions?
Their demands were met with terror and, in turn, it was countered with terror by the people. Armed forces, formerly loyal to the government, have defected and are now fighting in the interest of nationalism against the terror inflicted upon the people by Karachi… H.K. Mashoed in Angkatan Bersendjata, Indoensia-November 16, 1971
Source : Bangladesdh Documents Vol-II, PP 229-230