MUJIB FORCES HOLDING BORDER AREAS
EYEWITNESS TELLS OF KILLINGS IN DACCA
Chuadanga : East Pakistan, April 5(AP).
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s independence forces held on Monday to stretches of East Pakistan territory, along the border with India, moving for fight until they defeat the Pakistan Army.
The army of President Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan, trying to prevent this province of 75 million persons from seceding and becoming an independent nation, appeared to be in control of the major cities, including Dacca, the provincial capital.
But 11 days after the civil war broke out, numerous border towns such as Chuadanga remained in the hands of the followers of Sheikh Mujib, the 51-year-old leader of the Awami League beliveved to be in a West Pakistani jail.
Reports received in this command post of the South Western sector of the Sheikhs forces said the army was trying hard to regain control over the strategic district city of Jessore, 40 miles (65 km) to the Southeast.
Radio Pakistan continued to say that the army is in full control of the situation in East Pakistan “and is effectively dealing with the armed infiltraters and miscreants who are now isolated.”
The Indian Government denied again it was permiting any infiltrations from its borders. An official spokesman said in New Delhi that an order had been issued to border security forces not to permit any Indians to cross into East Pakistan.
In Chuadanga 80 miles (130 km) north of Calcutta the local “liberation forces were so confident of victory they talks about letting West Pakistani soldiers surrender.”
‘It they surrender we will let them go’, said Major Mohammed Abu Osman, one of two supreme commanders of the young state’s armed forces at his command post in this city only 8 miles from the Bengal border and 80 miles north of Calcutta. “If not, we will butcher them all.’
Osman says his southwest sector, comprising 25 million Bengalis in a half moon in a curve of the Ganges River, is totally liberated except for Khulna and the cantonment at Jessore.
The other 55 million, inhabitants of the breakway Eastern wing of Pakistan are opposed to troops from West Pakistan and resisting them at every turn, he said.
Reporters have found areas they solidly under Osman’s control.
A creaking bullock cart jolted down a dirt track with a green, red and yellow Bangla Desh banner flying over it on stick. In isolated villages, tiny children scream “Joi Bangla” (victory to Bengal) at passing jeeps.
‘Even if we have to lose ten million people’, said a rebel government leader of Dursana town, ‘the other 65 million will live to peace.’
Flags of the new state fluttered everywhere as the impoverished population settled down to a life of scarcity. The sugar and jute can’t be exported, they admit, and times wil be hard.
HINDUS KILLED
Pakistan army soldiers and Urdu-speaking civilian volunteers with white hands tied around their foreheads went on a shooting spree in Hindu areas of the old city of Dacca for several days after the collapse of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s movement, persons returning from East Pakistan said.
Eyewitnesses said three young British men were lined up before a firing squad in the temporary army headquarters in Jaganath college in the old city after being detained for taking pictures around a Protestant church.
A British diplomat who saw them being taken off in an army vehicle persuaded the officer to let them go but not before the Pakistani attempted to bargain to let two go if permited: to shoot one as a spy.
According to the sources, two middle-aged Americans also were picked up for taking photographs but were not subjected to the threat of a firing squad.
The sources did not want the persons involved identified, to prevent reprisals.
Their stories describe widespread shooting during and immediately after the army’s crushing of Sheikh Mujib’s movement on the night of March 25.
According to one, troops moved through the heavily hindu areas of the old city ‘moving them down.’
Dacca and the rest of East Pakistan is predominantly Moslem with about 10 millon Hindus and 60 million Moslems. Among the hardest-hit areas in Dacca was the campus of the University of Dacca.
After the army pounded several student residence halls, the sources said department heads and lecturers were shot. ‘They included Doctor G.C. Dev, head of the Department of Philosophy, and a Hindu; Dr. M. Kabir, Moslem head of the History Department, Dr. Zaman, Moslem head of the statistics department, and Dr. Mukhtar Dir, Moslem lecturer in Geology.
Among those reported beaten or wounded were Dr. M.N. Huda an internationally known economist who was briefly governor of East Pakistan before the fall of Field Marshal Mohammed Ayub Khan two years ago.
According to eyewitneses, a patrol entered the premises of the British Council library in the University grounds and shot dead nine policemen who had been standing guard for about two weeks after a bomb incident. A witness said one policeman shot a soldier.
Bodies were carried from the library premises the following morning about the same time as a buldozer was digging a massgrave for students killed in Jaganath residence hall at the University.
Other soures said most of the radical student leaders were killed when the army arrested Sheik Mujib at his Dhanmondi residence.
REFUGEES
A British ship carrying 119 refugees of 17 nations for East Pakistan left Chittngong Monday for Calcutta, shipping sources reported.
The group, mainly women and children from a United Nations mission and private companies in the Chittagong area, included 33 Britons and 35 Americans.
The ship is expected to dock Tuesday, in Calcutta.
Indonesian Observer, 6th april 1971
সূত্র: আন্তর্জাতিক গণমাধ্যম ও মুক্তিযুদ্ধ ১৯৭১ . ১ম খণ্ড – মুনতাসীর মামুন