THE UNDECLARED WAR
But in Dacca they couldn’t care less
Dacca, East Pakistan, Nov, 27 (AP)- Millitary Commanders say 200,000 Indian troops are poised on the borders of East Pakistan, but the people of this steram. Ganges provincial capital seen unpertubed.
A few slit trenches have been dug in the soft earth sidewalks as precautions against air attack. Some shops here taped windows.
Pakistan Airlines has begun painting its planes camouflage colors. But one plane took off Friday with the front half camouflaged and the rear end the usual green and white.
The army has sandbagged antiaircraft positions on rooftops near the airport. Rolls of barred wire and oil drums block the road to the heavily defended military head quarters, downtown the streets as usual along with brightly decorated musclepowered ricksaws.
Army convoys moved out of the city towards the West Bengal border.
A one-day curfew has been lifted and no blackout precautions have been taken since a trial run earlier in the week.
The city is lit up at night but the streets are deserted except for army patrols.
At the Intercontinental Hotel, Red Cross, and diplomatic officials took an evening swim.
Hamburgers and the inevitable curry were on the menu, but beer was off Friday, a religious fact day.
But beneath the outward calm, undercurrents of fear were noticeable.
“There’s going to be a blood bath here in the next two weeks,” said a veteran diplomat, “I’d get out if I were you.”
Most of the estimated 300 foreigners still remaining in Dacca have one fear : that the airport will be shut by shelling and planes will no longer fly out. Roads to Chittagong, and the Indian border are virtually impassable.
The rebel Mukti Bahini, who the army says number 30,000, have blown almost all bridges. The roads are mined as well.
“You’re safe if you stick to the pukka boards,” Brig, G.M.E. Siddiqui, Army, Chief of staff, said. “Of course there are risks.”
A pukka road is one that is paved and there are not many of those. Gunfire is heard nightly in the outskirts and suburbs of Dacca. But few accurate reports of event filter through.
Rumors run ripe. A current is that the officially estimated 2,000 rebels in the city will launch a full-scale attack within a week.
The army dismisses Mukti Bahini activities in Dacca “only a mosquito bite.” Just what the situation is round East Pakistan’s border with India is uncertain.
It is virtually impossible for out siders to get there except by army claims it does not have enough. This is supported by the fact that have been pressed into service for convoy duty.
Two visits to the front were arranged earlier this week for correspondents, but those who went said little conclusive was seen.
Sidiqui claimed Friday that the Pakistani Army had beaten back a five-plonged attack by 10-Indian divisions totaling nearly, 200,000 men after knocking out 28 enemy tanks and killing possibly 800 Indians for the loss of 30 Pakistanis.
This claim seemed as improbaable as an Indian claim from Calcutta that the Mukti Bahini, with the support of the Indian Army, was attempting to encircle Jessore, a vital Pakistani divisional headquarters 25 miles (40 km) from the West Bengal border and 65 (100 km) miles northern of Calcutta.
Correspondents in the area reported little detectable activity. But there was one definite warning to the population that the country is at war.
A local Dacca morning newspaper carried a small item which said “Hark, secrets leak out through wine and women.”
Reference : Indonesian Observer, 30.11.1971