Mukti Bahini actions bewilder Pak Army
From Our Special Correspondent, NEW DELHI, AUG.23 – The Pakistani Army in East Bengal is rather bewildered today. With a significant increase in the military actions by the Mukti Bahini the Pak Army is getting more and more nervous.
This and the following series of information are gathered from a source whose identity could not be divulged at the moment.
The Pak Army and its office of the Chief of Staff are at a loss now that about four million East Bengalis had fled and silently merged themselves into green and aquatic landscapes of the country being ravaged by Yahya’s hordes since March 25-26.
From Jessore, Khulna and other areas, these people were stated to be liquidated by the Pak Army. But at the first sign of collective murder, these people in heavy populated areas had left their homes.
And it is from among the families of these wandering millions that the neverending recruits to the Mukti Bahini have been enlisting. No doubt that the activities of the Mukti Bahini must be on the increase for the last couple of months.
It is noted that, till now, the Pak Army in Bangladesh had failed. (I) To seal off the border with India; (II) to liquidate the centers of heavily populated areas because the people had moved out in time and (III) to prevent the escape of others.
The rate of casualties has been so much on the increase in the Pak Army that now only the bodies of officers alone are being air-lifted to Rawalpindi and elsewhere. The other ranks killed are being buried in the soil of East Bengal.”
The Army units are fixed in such a manner that, with the signs of the monsoon tapering off, they are retreating into their own cantonment areas. They never dare move out, off highways and never without a full company strength when they do.
They are jittery in the sense that they do not know when and from where men of the Liberation Forces would accost them. Indeed, it seems, the alien Pak Army is afraid even of the geography of East Bengal.
Nearly all those who had panicked had come away to India. But the Pak Army could not account for others who had escaped their cruel hands and had formed the nuclei of support in villages to the Mukti Bahini.
Rail and road communications are today one-third of what it had been before. Indeed Pakistan is not rebuilding bridges and culverts any more. The shortage of amterials is acute.
Industrial production, particularly in the textile sphere (cotton and jute) is very much down in places like Kushtia and Narayanganj.
All this had led Pakistan to seek to raise rapidly a fresh strength of three divisions, the number she had diverted to East Bengal to suppress the people.
The Mukti Bahini had also infiltrated into the ranks of the Razakars, supposed to be a force to fight the guerillas and to betray the freedom fighters.
The use of more and more good arms by the Mukti Bahini against the Pak Army goes to indicate the growing strength of the liberation forces, the sinking of ships being one of the latest instances.
PTI adds : Details were released at Mujibnagar today of eight cargo ships -six of them foreign which were sunk recently by the Mukti Bahini operations off Chittagong and Mongla ports.
According to the detailed reports, special task groups of the Mukti Bahini in a (week of widespread operations from August 15, also captured 23 river steamers, motor launches and barges, and sank or damaged eight rivercraft and a wharf in Sylhet, Dacca, Chandpur and Chittagong.
A Mukti Bahini spokesman said today that six ocean-going vessels were sunk at Mangla-two American, two Chinese, one Pakistani and one Japanese.
A London report says that behind their show of supreme self-confidence the Pakistani General’s staff in Dacca are deeply distressed by mounting guerilla activity in Bangladesh, the Daily Telegraph correspondent, Clare Hollingworth, has reported from Dacca.
The correspondent said the sinking of four supply vessels last week was seriously interrupting the flow of soldiers and military supplies from West Pakistan.
The despatch said the Pakistani Army had been kept in the dark about the guerilla activity and the morale of the forces were high, but this could not last long in the face of constant dangers of hidden road mines, derailment of troops train and unexpected shots from the sniper.
But the most serious problem, the correspondent added, was maintenance of military supplies which needed to be carried by sea round India and several foreign ships had already decided not to visit Chittagong in view of the risks involved.
Reference: Hindustan Standard, 24.08.1971