Urdu editors pledge support to Bangladesh
NEW DELHI, June 27.-Editors of India’s leading Urdu Newspapers yesterday pledged support to the Bangladesh freedom struggle for their democratic rights and condemned the atrocities committed by Pakistan’s military junta on the innocent people there, says UNI.
Participating in the seminar on the “current situation in the Indian Sub-continent and the Press, some editors also expressed concern at the reported “rough treatment meted out to Biharis and other non-Bengalis in East Bengal.”
But the special invitee from Dacca to the seminar, Mr. Abidur Rahman, editor of the People, refuted this.
Mr. Rahman said Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s movement was against the military dictators, and in seeking co-operation of the people for the movement, he never discriminated between Bengalis and non-Bengalis.
Mr. Rahman played a recorded speech of the Sheikh in which he had appealed to the Pathans, Biharis and all others to co-operate with him.
Mr. Rahman declared amid applause: “Bangladesh is now an established fact whether Big Powers accept or not.”
He reviewed the political, economic and military situation there and said the Mukti Fouj was in a very happy position.”
Mr. Shamim Ahmed Shamim, MP, who is also the editor of Aina, a weekly of Srinagar, regretted that the attitude of the Muslim Press to the Bangladesh issue was not as clear as it should have been. In a forthright speech, he appealed to the Muslim Press to identify itself with the national mood on the issue.
Reference: Hindustan Standard 28.6.1971