British refugees from Chittagong tell
of murder by both sides
From Peter Hazelhurst, Calcutta, April 6
The city of Chittagong has been shattered by artillery fire and subjected to a wave of looting mass murder, rape and arson.
The Pakistan Army has embarked on a programme of genocide and troops are moving through the city’s strects, guning down every Bengali they see. In the outskirts of Chittagong mobs of Bengalis are hacking and beating non-Bengalis and Punjabis to death.
This is how a party of 33 Britons who were evacuated from Dacca two days ago, described the 10 days of horror in the port after President Yahya Khan decided to use force to repress the rebellion in Bengal last month.
The Britons, men, women and children, landed in Calcutta today, on board the cargo ship Clan Macnair which sailed for Chittagong earlier this week to pick up 119stranded foreign nationals from the port.
One of the Briton an engineer, said tonight: “I saw a police truck approach a group of Bengalis on the street. The machine went ‘Briii’ and they were all on the ground. I don’t know how many died.”
The engineer said that he and other foreigners were trapped in a larger house in central Chittagong when the firing broke out.
He added: “As we left for the port two days ago, the Army destroyed the house opposite us. It belonged to a Bengali coloned whom they had shot but they suspected that two of his lieutenants were hiding there.
“They came out into the street with mortars and bombarden the house. Then they rushed inside and I fired machine gun fire.”
He said that the trouble started on March 23 when Awami League volunteers attempted to prevent the Army from unloading ammunition at the docks. TheArmy used artilery and mortarts, It was “mass murder.” It was impossible to estimate the death toll, he said, but other passengers on the Clan MacNair agreed that the figure could have been as high as tens of thousands.
The engineer said: “Dogs and crows are eating the piles of bodies which have been left in the street.
“We saw the troops combing the deserted houses for Bengalis. And when they found them they were shot on the spot.”
The homes of Bengalis, non-Bengalis and foreigners were looted by both troops and wandering mobs of thugs immediately after they were evacuated. “Banglai junior officers in the East Pakistan Rifies began to kill their senior officers and the entire town went berserk.” said the engineer..
The British manager of a jute mill 12 miles outside Chittagong spent three days in a mud hut village as he tried to escape the carnage in the area on March 25. “It was a bloody massacre. You cannot blame one side: they all did it.” he said here tonight.
He said that mobs looted and wrecked the mill and then killed the non-Bengali staff and Punjabis. “All four of my directors and their families who were Punjabis were burnt alive in their houses,” he added.
“I saw hundreds of burnt-out homes in Chittagong and a doctor handed me bones of people who were burnt alive in their houses.”
“The next morning, the bodies were piled 40 or 50 deep at Finlay’s Hall, one of the main residential areas,” he said, “At one point, I saw lorry loads of soldiers moving down Bengali civilians.”
Many of the 33 Briton who disembarked from the Clan MacNair at Calcutta port today were without any luggage or money. They were driven straight to the British mission in the city.
The Britons, and the Americans who arrived with them, confirmed reports that the Pakistan Army controlled the city. They denied reports that Chittagong port had been destroyed by fire.
A German technician who arrived in Calcutta from Dacca today said that the Army was in complete control of the central areas of the city. “People are terrified and are flying Pakistan’s national flag. No one is flying the BanglaDesh flag,’ he said.
Our Karachi Correspondent writest Dr. Kamal Hussain, who was chief constitutional adviser to Shaikh Mujibur Rahman, the Awami League leader, has surrendered to the martial law authorities, it was officially announced here. It was not revealed where or when this occurred. Dr. Hussain, a barrister who holds a doctorate from Oxford University, had gone underground with some other Awami League members on March 26 when President Yahya Khan ordered the Army to restore the central government’s authority in East Pakistan. He was earlier reported to have been killed.
There is still no official information about the fate of other members of the Awami League hierarchy. Shaikh Mujibur, whose arrest was announced shortly after military action began in the eastern wing, is believed to have been flown to West Pakistan and to be held in a gigantic granite fort midway between Peshawar and Rawalpindi.
Evening newspapers here, quoting reports from Rawalpindi, said that Shaikh Mujib would be tried by a special military tribunal as soon as the case against him was completed.
Calcutta, April 6.-The Pakistan Army, which had been besieged in the cantonment of Jessore for the past week, regained virtual control over this strategic town in south-west East Pakistan yesterday.
The troops charged out of their cantonment, guns blazing, and drove Bengali “Liberation Army” men from all the positions they had occupied with the exception of their headquarters and the palace
The Bengalis say that thousands of civilians were killed in the Army operation to take Jessore. An Agence France Presse correspondent saw hundreds of bodies in a canal in the western outskirts.
with the badly-armed Bengalis launching sporadic attacks. The town itself was practically deserted-Agence France Presse.
Delhi, April 7.-Two diplomats of the Pakistan High Commission here sought political asylum in India last night, Indian officials said today. They were named as Mr. K. M. Shehabuddin, aged 30, second secretary, and Mr. Ajudul Huq, aged 33, assistant press attache. Both men are believed to be East Pakistanis,-Reuter.
Reference: The Times, April 7, 1971