SLAUGHTER IN E. PAKISTAN
Mymensingh, East Pakistan, May, (AP)
… Slaughter between indigenous Bengalis and non-Bengali migrants left many thousands dead before order was restored, survivors of the bloody clashes said Friday.
Most victims were Moslem Biharis from India but many Hindus were also reported massacred by Bengalis whose drive for autonomy from West Pakistan led to civil war on March 26.
Responsible government and other sources estimate at least 30,000 were killed in communal violence since March I (first) accross East Pakistan not counting Bengalis shot by army troops putting down what officers term a “full-fledged insurgency”.
Senior officers deny any women or children were knowingly killed by soldiers but say hundreds of men were killed in the fightings since March 26.
“There were five thousand non-Bengalis where I lived and now there are 25 survivors,” said assistant postmaster of this nearly empty town ninety miles (145 km) above Dacca.
He showed reporters a neck wound where he said Bengalis shot him through the throat before knifing him and dumpoing him in the rive. He managed to reach safely and treatment, he said.
or officers deny any med in the fightings since lived and now ther As he started describing how his sister’s breast was mutilated before she was killed he broke into tears and was led away by soldiers who had brought him to speak to newsmen.
At the postal workers’ settlement, a foreigners’ quarter called shanty Para, a young Bihari woman told how her hushand and elder children were killed. She said she bought her own life with jewelry and household goods.
Across a dirt road a shirtless Bengali man told one reporter that many Bihari had killed Bengalis. He said his family fled in rural areas in fright.
One officer stationed here said his men had disposed of thousands of bodies in mass graves outside the town. “We couldn’t bury them all. We just threw some away in the river”, he said.
His commander blamed many of the killings on Bengali toughs who ordered a curfew when they controlled the town and sneaked around in darkness systematically executig non-Bengalis.
Earlier in Dacca newsmen who were the first to be allowed in since March 26 were shown a huge display of weapons which the army said were captured in East Pakistan and brought from Indian government stores. They were made during the past few years at Kirkees munitions factory, Indian markings indicated. There were also some Soviat and Czech weapons and ammunition.
Indian equipment included seven 92 automatic weapons, three and two inch mortars, grenades and small arms.
Reporters later visited a refugee camp in Dacca where 3,000 homeless from Mymensingh lodged.
Doctors were treating 25 man and 13 women, all non-Bengalis for what they said were bullet, knife and axe wounds inflicted by Bengalis during the past weeks.
One seven year-old boy sat dully on a single hospital bed with his four year-old brother and doctors said that only their 13 year-old brother was left in the family.
One woman had severe knife cuts and another had her hand almost chopped off by an axe.
Both said they had been carried off wounded by Bengali youths.
One nineteen year-old Bihari student, shot through the stomach, said Bengali toughs had ordered all the men from his part of shanti outside and opened fire with automatic weapons.
He was hit three times and fell unconscious he said but survied because the rebels thought him dead.
Reference : Indonesian Observer, 12.05.1971