INDIA CONSIDERS RECOGNITION OF BANGLA DESH NATION
Awami League Issues Conditions for Settlement
The Indian Govenment will decide soon whether to recognize officially the breakaway state of Bangla Desh (East Pakistan) G.G.Swell, presiding officer of the Lower House of Parliment (Lok Saba) told a convention on Bangla Desh in New Delhi Sunday.
He said the decision was expected after the return of Foreign Minister Swaran Singh from his tour to Moscow, Bonn, Paris, Ottawa, New York, Washington, London.
Premier Mrs. Indira Gandhi, in a message to the convention said events in East Bengal had created a major problem for India.
“When four million people are forced to flee from their home and their country into our territory through terror, it obviously cannot remain an internal matter for Pakistan”, Mrs. Gandhi’s message said.
She called events in East Pakistan “one of the most unabashed examples of governmental violence in history” and claimed the international community had the duty to impress upon the rulers of Pakistan that “democratic urges cannot be surpressed through armed military might”.
Mrs. Indira’s Statement
A report from Lucknow said that Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi Sunday described the blood shed in East Pakistan has the most unabashed example of the use governmental violence in human history.”
“The international community has a duty to impress upon the rulers of Pakistan that democratic urges cannot be suppressed through armed might” she said.
Mrs. Gandhi made her statement in a message to a national conventions of minorities in Bangla Desh (Bengal Naton).
East Pakistan being held in this northern Indian city.
Mrs. Gandhi appealed to the people of India to strengthen the government’s hands in tackling the situation created by the influx of refugees.
She said India has scrupulously refrained from any policy calculated to disrupt or even weaken Pakistan.
“But now it looks that though Pakistan’s own rulers are out to weakens themselves, we have been acting with very great restraint and full realisation of the implications of the various courses of action,” she added.
Condition for Pakistani Crisis Settlement
Meanwhile the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported the out-lawed Awami League Sunday spelt out its conditions for a political settlement of the East Pakistan crisis.
PTI said the acting persident of the “sovereign independent Republic of Bangla Desh (Bengal nation),” Syed Nazrul Islam named the condition in a 45-minute broadcast on the Swadhin Bangal Betar Kendra (Free Bengal Radio station) from Mujibnagar, headquarters of the Bangla Desh Government inside East Pakistan.
The Indian news agency quoted Islam as saying the conditions were :unconditional release of Sheikh Mukibur Rahman “President of the Bangla Desh Government.”
In elections to a Pakistan National Assembly last December he led his Awami League to an overall majority, including 167 of the 169 East Pakistani seats. On March 26 Pakistan President Yahya Khan declared the Sheikh a traitor, arrested him and banned the Awami League.
According to Indian officials Security forces were Sunday sealing a stretch of the border between India and East Pakistan to prevent cholera-carrying Pakistan refugees entering the country.
The border was being closed at Sikarpur in the Nadia District of India’s West Bengal State.
Indian authoritres believed virulent Asiatic cholera was ravaging the area of East Pakistan directly across the border for Nadia about 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of Calcutta.
Reference : The Djakarta Times, 08.06.1971