Guerrillas Say 20,000 Pakistanis Killed
From Our Correspondent
Tripura, East Pakistan Border. July 22. East Bengal freedom fighters claim to have killed between 15,000 and 20,000 West Pakistani troops and wounded many others so seriously that they “must have succumbed to their injuries in hospital.” In a special interview, Colonel M. A. Osmani, commander-in-chief of the Bangladesh forces, told me he was speaking’ exclusively of losses suffered by the Pakistan Army, implying that the enemy casualties did not include informers and collaborators killed by freedom fighters.
The figure seemed so high that I would have been altogether skeptical if it had not come from an officer who belongs very much to the old British Army tradition. For 10 years before retiring in 1967, Colonel Osmani held that rank in the Pakistan Army. During the 1965 war with India he was director of military operations, and in that capacity he represented Pakistan at Seato and Cento meetings.
Talking to different Mukti Fauj (liberation forces) commanders in the eastern sector, I have tried to find out if their estimates vary. But if anything they tend to think Colonel Osrnani’s estimate is unduly conservative. It is impossible to be certain but unless the liberation forces are deliberately deceiving themselves with imaginary reports in their official records, the Pakistan Army must have sustained very heavy losses.
The field commanders insist that enemy losses would have been much heavier if the fight had not been so unequal in terms of military equipment. Colonel Osmani said: “The enemy is receiving very considerable quantities of arms and sophisticated military hardware from more than one country, a situation in which my liberation forces find themselves in a serious handicap. If the liberation forces were adequately equipped the impact of my operation would have been even more spectacular and would have brought to a speedy end the savagery of a nature that the worst of Hitler’s brigade would have been ashamed of.”
Whatever one may think of this claim, it is clear that the liberation forces are making highly effective use of such arms and ammunition as they possess. Among their most successful operations in recent weeks have been acts of sabotage by guerrillas operating among the civilian population or by specially trained commando groups sent out on specific missions. At the eastern sector headquarters, I was able to talk to some young men who had carried out sabotage operations in Dacca and Narayanganj and had returned to headquarters for briefing and new assignments. One of them had taken part in an operation which has denied the Pakistan Army the use of at least 200 speed boats which are desperately needed for military purposes in monsoon-flooded land.
Frequent disruption of the power supply in East Bengal towns must have caused great concern to the military administration. As could be seen from acts of sabotage affecting the power generating stations in Dacca last Monday, the military authorities have been unable to protect the supply system. Major Khaled, commander of the Mukti Fauj’s eastern sector, when told of a The Times report that the military administration suspected Indian engineering skill behind these acts of sabotage, seemed vastly amused. He said: “There is certainly some specialized skill involved. A qualified and experienced engineer tells us what to do, and my boys go and do it. But this skill has come from Bangladesh itself.”
Delhi, July 22. India has lodged a strong protest with Pakistan against an alleged violation of its air space over Kashmir by two Mirage jet aircraft, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said today. The Note was delivered in the Pakistan High Commission here but contrary to normal practice, the Indian Government did not release the text. In reply to questions at his daily press briefing, the spokesman said the two aircraft had flown from the north-west at a fairly low level over Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir on Tuesday. A Defence Ministry spokesman had earlier been reluctant to go into detail and would not confirm a press report that Indian armed forces had been placed on a special alert on the western borders.
Reference: The Times, 25 July, 1971