TIMES OF INDIA, NOVEMBER 4, 1971
EAST BENGALI CHILDREN HOLD DEMONSTRATION
By A Staff. Reporter
New Delhi, November 3. Murad 8 and Murshid 6 two sons of Mr. Hossain Ali, personal assistant to Pakistan’s intelligence chief in India Mr. Abdul Ghani along with other East Bengali children today held a demonstration outside the main gate of the Pakistan High Commission to demand the release of their parents detained in the High Commission premises.
Mr. Hossain Ali, who was beaten up by High Commission officials when he unsuccessfully tried to escape to freedom yesterday is still reported to be lying unconscious in the High Commission.
Little Murshid held a placard which demanded “Release our parents and sisters.”
Some former Pakistani employees who defected to Bangladesh yesterday were today threatened by the Pakistan Army Adviser Brig. Ghulam Hassan Khan when they went to meet Murad and Murshid.
The Brigadier, who drove to the main gate tried to talk to the former employees of the High Commission. He is stated to have asked the employees what they were doing outside the gate of the High Commission particularly when they had expressed a desire to go to Pakistan only a day earlier.
The former employees told the Brigadier that they did not wish to talk to him and asked him to mind his business. Meanwhile four employees of the High Commission joined him near the main gate to lend a “helping hand.” They argued with the police officers who requested them not to create an incident and remain inside the High Commission. When they tried to bully the police officers, they were firmly told to go back.
Brigadier Hassan was reported to have threatened the East Bengalis that if they did not disperse “I will shoot you down-after all I am a Palhan.”
The Brigadier is reported to have interrogated Mr. Mujibur Rahman in the so called Agartala conspiracy case.
Girl Dragged
Mr. Hossain Ali’s wife and three daughters are locked up in a room in the High Commission. His two sons had managed to escape with some other Bengali members of the Pakistan High Commission staff yesterday. The East Bengalis fear that Mr. Hossain Ali might be killed by Pakistani intelligence men in the Commission.
They said that M. Butt a West Pakistani official of the High Commission, dragged by her hair Maya, 15-year-old daughter of Mr. Hossain Ali when she made a bid to escape yesterday.
A spokesman of the Bangladesh Mission in New Delhi said that the 48-hour ultimatum given to the Pakistan High Commissioner Mr. Sajjad Hyder to release Mr. Hossain Ali and his family would expire at 12 noon tomorrow. If he was not released by the deadline they would retaliate suitably.