INDIAN HOSTAGE IN DACCA
PLEA FOR RELEASE OF CHILDREN
Almost 90 days after the army moved March 25 against the rebel of Awami league, Maj. Gen. farman said resistance against army at Comilla. Mymensingh. Sylhet and Dacca is contnuing.
He said most resistance is occuring close to the border, with dissidents moving from sanctuaries in India.
HOSTAGES
The Indian Deputy High Commissioner in Dacca, Sen Gupta, the major character in a diplomatic struggle between India and Pakistan has pleaded for the release of the children in the diplomatic group impounded by Pakistan.
Gupta and 241 other Indian diplomats, their wives and children under restriction in May, are virtually prisoners in their homes here.
They are the pawns in a diplomatic dispute over the transfer of staff here and in Calcutta where at least 100 Pakistanis are strạnded, of then more than 50 claimed allegiance to the secessionist East Pakistan state of Bangla Desh.
Gupta told the Associated Press in the first interview since the Pakistan government ordered him confined May 3: ‘I am very unhappy about the children who are cooped up to apartments’.
The Pakistan Army is guarding his two-storey vila. It has refused him permission to even have a barber. Gupta has not had his hair cut for more than two months.
He said that once a day, a servant is allowed in the company of two armed guards to buy food at near by market. But he has not even been allowed to buy milk.
Nevertheless he said that he is better off than most other mission members who are cramped, two to three in a room, in houses elsewhere in Dacca.
Gupta said that members of several diplomatic missions sought to see him but were refused. The out going U.S. Consul-General Archer Blood and the British Deputy High Commissioner Frank Sergeant were permitted to wave him farewell.
The dispute started in April when East Pakistan members of Deputy High Commissioner M. Hussan Ali, declared their allegiance to secessionist Bangla Desh.
The Pakistan claimed the Indian government refused to cooperate with the newlyappointed mission head, Mehdi Masud.
They also demanded the right to interview each defector privately before agreeing to a reciprocal exchange of Mission personnel. The Pakistanis closed the Calcutta mission and ordered the Dacca high commission closed April 26.
BOMB SCARE
Predawn explosions Tuesday in the provincial capital of Dacca revived a bomb scare as reports of renewed fighting filtered in from the East Pakistani border.
The blasts shock the Eastern part of the city about 0400 hours local time shortly after arrival of the first foreign newsmen since the military lifted a ban against them Saturday, claiming law and order was under control here. No report of damage or casualties was available.
Pakistan sources said the explosions were the first since Friday night in a continuation of a service starting about a month after the army cracked down March 25 against Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his Awami League political party.
Reference : Indonesian Observer, 25.06.1971