INDIAN GOV’T CONSTRUCTING BIG REFUGEE CAMPS
CALCUTTA. The Indian Government is constructing big refuges camps in West Bengal- each capable of housing 100,000 refugees segregated from the local population.
The camps are being built as the flood of refugees from East Pakistan continues, with at least 4,900,000 already in West Bengal alone.
Between 75,000 and 100,000 refugees are continuing it cross into India daily, N.M. Sen Gupta, the chief secretary for West Bengal said Wednesday.
He said the number of refugees actually in West Bengal could be as high as 5,500,000
Four British members of Parliament have ended a two-day tour of refugee camps in northeast India and planned to fly to New Delhi Thursday for talks with India’s Prime Minister Mrs Indira Gandhi.
They expressed their horror at the conditions of refugees following their visit to the Bongaon area on Tuesday after earlier visiting Dacca and other areas in East Pakistan.
The camp construction programme comes as cholera continues to ravage an area sixty miles (95 km) northeast of Calcutta.
A British war-on-want doctor from Vobast, Dr. Stewart Clarke said more than 500 are cholera victims had been reported at the Bongaon hospital on Tuesday, almost double the number admitted the previous day. The majority of the refugees now entering west Bengal appear at the moment to be coming into the Bongaon are from the Faridpur district across the border in East Pakistan.
Sen Gupta said the government hoped to take away half million refugees to other Part of India by the end of next month.
Reference : The Djakarta Times, 03.07.1971