1.5 MILLION IN EAST PAKISTAN FACE STARVATION LONDON
Wednessday
ABOUT 1,500,000 people in strife-hit East Pakistan are facing starvation on a scale worse than the Nigerian civil war, according to one expert here today.
The forecast was delivered by Iain MacDonald, East Pakistan relief coordinator for the organisations Christian Aid, Oxfam and War on Want.
He said the Pakistan strife prevented cultivation necessary for the next harvest in November
Grain suppiles would dissppear in two months and starvation would be inevitable because road and airlinks would be cut by the fighting.
In NEW DELHI, two Bengali-born Pakistani diplomats were given political asylum by India and put under protective custody here today after accusing their Government of want only massacring East Pakistanis.
Both diplomats- Second Secretary K.M. Shehabuddin, 30 and Assistant Press Attache Amjadul Huq, 33,- declared they intended returning soon to “serve the cause” of Bangla Desh (Bengall Nation), as they referred to East Pakistan.
Their dramatic switch of allegiance came hard on fresh reports of widespread fighting in East Pakistan and grim tales from foreign evacuees of happenings “worse than Biafra” following the crackdown on Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s Bangla Desh secessionist movement.
The Indian Government’s decision to provide the two pakistani diplomats with protection is a temporary measure.
Mr. Shehabuddin’s wife and two daughters were also granted asylum, Mr. Huq is a bachelor.
Fighting
Meanwhile the Indian news agency, the Press Trust of India, reported fierce fighting today in the East Pakistan town of Sylhet and said Pakistan Air Force planes had bombed the town, which was in the hands of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s secessionist supporters.
Three other towns-Narayanganj, Mymenshing and Bogra-were also bombed, PTI said, quoting reports from across the border.
The fighting in Sylhet, where Sheikh Mujib’s supporters were reported yesterday by PTI to have gained control after four days of bitter fighting, was in the region of the milltary barracks, but the town remained in the hands of secessionists according to the unconfirmed reports.
In CALCUTTA, evacuees who sailed in on the Clan Macnair said Chittagong was now deserted. Most of the population had left for the countryside after “all hell broke loose” on Friday, March 26.
Corpses
Fighting was still continuing on the outskirts of the city when the Clan Macnair set sail on Monday:
British evacuees spoke of bodies scattered all over Chittagong East Pakistan’s second largest city. Dogs and crows were stripping the corpses, some of which had been lying rotting for nine days.
A jute mill manager from Dundee, Scotland, said : “It has been a bloody massacre. You cannot pin the blame on one side. Both sides have been inhumanely brutal. Several Punjabis were killed in cold blood by Bengalis.”
Radio Pakistan charged today for the second time that the Indian Navy was interfering with its shipping out of West Pakistan.
Meanwhile China warned India against interfering in the Pakistani civil war.Reuter.
ref. Straits Time, 8.4.1971