All bank accounts of party frozen
Awami League ‘no more’
…. by martial law order
NEW DELHI, Monday
THE East Pakistan martial law administration in Dacca today froze all bank accounts held by the Awami League, the army controlled Dacca radio reported.
A new martial law order said the Awami League, which had a landslide victory in elections last December for the national assembly, winning all 160 East Pakistani seats, had ceased to exist as a political party.
Appeal for aid “Free bangla” Radio, monitored from East Pakistan in Calcutta by the Press Trust of India today appealed to what it described as the freedom-loving and democratic nations of the world to help Awami League leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in his struggle for the freedom of East Pakistan.
It said: “Never in the history of mankind has such brutality been perpetrated on unarmed people as by the barbarous Punjabi troops.”
Great need
The radio said that during last year’s disastrous East Pakistan cyclone, which killed hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people throughout the world had expressed sympathy with the victims and helped them in every possible way “The need is far greater today,” it added.
Pakistan Radio said last night calm prevailed in all major towns and the countryside with the army in control.
But clandestine radio stations, said to be manned by Awami League supporters, asserted that fierce fighting was still in progress and claimed capturing several key towns from West Pakistan troops.
Strict press censorship is in force and virtually all foreign correspondents were flown out of Dacca on Friday.
Radio Pakistan said the situation was quiet in Dacca and that the curfew would be lifted again today. Banks were told to reopen and Government and other workers asked to return to their jobs.
But the radio conceded that there had been trouble in Khulna, about 50 kms from the Indian border and attributed it to a “mob of miscreants.”
Improving
The PTI quoted travellers reaching India as saying the martial law administrator there had been seriously wounded. The officiai radio also said the situation in Chittagong, East Pakistan’s main port, was improving
The Press Trust of India quoted a clandestine radio today as saying that the radio station in Dacca had been captured by the breakaway “Liberation army” after fierce fighting
However, conflicting reports of events in East Pakistan and the absence of any onthe-spot accounts today made it difficult to draw an accurate picture of the situation there.
The Straits Times, 30.3.1971