AMRITA BAZAR PATRIKA, MAY 12 1971
CHITTAGONG SEEN WITH HER STAINS AND SCARS
Chittagong, May 11. Newsmen were yesterday shown massive shell and fire damage and evidence of a sweeping massacre of civilians by the Pak Army in this crippled key port of East Bengal, reports A.P.
The Army is well in control here but troops occupied the important town of Cox’s Bazar, 110 km to the south only five days ago and patrols are still encountering the Mukti Fauj elsewhere in southern areas, officers said.
Chittagong’s port remains largely undamaged but is severely choked with cargo for lack of labor force and the means to tranship inland.
Chittagong industrialists say it will take many months, possibly years to restore the economy and activity here. At the Ispahani Jute Mills only 20 of 7,500 workers returned to their posts and the Manager said “it will take six weeks just to see where everything is”.
At Chittagong port a skeleton crew of dockers loaded jute bailed in December. Shippers estimate that 400,000 tons of cargo was backed up in the port which normally can handle only 300,000 tons per month. The river is the only means to move goods in and out of the interior, though it normally handles only 25 per cent of traffic.
No plans have yet been formulated to augment inland shipping capacity, shippers added.
Evidence of a brutal war is everywhere in this pleasant gardened city built around picturesque hills.
Chittagong was the last stop on a four-day tour by six foreign newsmen, the first allowed in since newsmen were expelled on March 26. It fitted the general pattern of dozens of cities and towns in East Bengal. Newsmen also saw Comilla where damage was far less but the atmosphere was still tense.
Comilla, like most population centers along the Indian border was heavily patrolled by soldiers with automatic weapons.