PAKISTANI TROOPS ATTACK INDIAN BORDER POST
New Delhi, May 20 (AP)
Pakistan armed forces attacked an Indian border post in remote Eastem Meghalaya State Tuesday morning, the Indian Government announced in Parliament.
Rehabilitation Minister R.K. Khadilkar, who is responsible for coordinating relief work to East Pakistan refugees in the border areas, said that details of the attack were awaited.
But Indian Press reports said that “some” members of the Indian paramilitary border security force had been killed when Pakistani troops shelled the Dalutborder post in the Garohills for the second consecutive day.
United News of India, quoting official reports reaching Shillong in Eastern India, said that in Monday’s fighting in the same area at least two Indian border’s guards and three villagers were killed, six injured and four kidnaped.
The Agency said that 25 Pakistani troops were rported killed and one was captured.
The reported fighting took place in an area tilled with thousands of East Pakistanis who have fled into India since March 25.
Meghalaya is a one-year old state carved out of Assam state to give greater autonomy to residents of the Khasi, Jaintia and Garo hills.
The Indian Government informed parliament Monday that Pakistani armed forces had killed 38 Indians, wounded 19 and kidnapped 14 in more than 50 border violations in the past two months along the 1,349-mile (2,300 km) frontier between India and East Pakistan.
Rehabilitation Minister Khadilkar told Parliament Tuesday that the number of East Pakistani refugees as of Monday was 1,550 member U.N. Team that had visited the refugee camps earlier this month had said that what was happening in East Pakistan was worse than the events that took place during the Nigerian war in Biafra.
The Assam State Government Eastern India said Tuesday it has evacuated four border villages to lowing two straight days attacks by the Pakistan Army.
Assam Chief Minister Mahendra Mohan Choudhury told the state legislature in Shillong that he had asked prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Defense Minister Jagjivan Ram “to take immediate action to clear the Pakistani Army from our areas and to safeguard the sancitity of our territory.”
United News of India, quoting of a report reaching shillong said that 23 persons, including a members of the Indian border security force, were killed during the day in heavy shelling by Pakistani toops in the Garo hills of remote Meghalaya, a remote autonomous state within Assam.
Reference : Indonesian Observer, 26.05.1971