THE EXODUS CONTINUES FROM EAST PAKISTAN
by Myron L. Belkind
Madhupur, India, July 18 (AP)
FOUR Months after the exodus began, East Pakistani Refugees coming into India as if they members of a retreating army.
Walking single through lush felds of palm trees, sugar cane and June they appear oblivious to torrential monsoon rains that turn the border region into a muddy swamp. oblivious to torrential monsoon rains that turn the border region into a muddy swamp.
Indian officials had expected the monsoon to stem the tide of the Refugees, now officialy estimated at seven million, but their hopes have disappeared.
A new, seeming endless wave of Refugees is now entering India, this time from interior regions of East Pakistan- 200 mlies (320 KM) and ten days walking away that the Pakistan army crackdown that had not been initially affected by began March 25. Now, the new arrivals say, the army is bursig their homes and killing their kids.
A 70 year old lady, 4.5 feet tall and weighing no more than 75 pounds, sinks into knee mud in this border village. A fellow refugee carries her a few yards. Then she continues her journey into a new country and to a uncertain future.
This correspondent walked along the border Friday as at least 4,000 Refugees crossed into India in three hours 320 in one five-minute period according to a head count.
Most were Hindu women and children who said their husbands and fathers either killed or missing. Some of the women wore plain white saris and had their hair were cut as widows do in conservative Bengali Hindu familes.
From the border, the refugees walked one mile and then sat down in a deserted field to spend the night. Anxious to maintain their cleanness, the women spread out their six meter (20 feet) long saris to dry and gave their children balth nearby ponds.
When the refugees wake up, they will have a problem. There is little room for them on the Indian side of the border from Madhupur to Calcutta 70 miles (112 KM) away.
“The problem is to get them some free space and we don’t have,” said Mr. K. NASKAR, the Chief Executive officer in Bangaon subdivision, which has one of the most densely populated Refugee communities.
Until the refugee Influx began, Bongaon subdivision had a population of 400,000. Now it is nearly one million or above 3,000 persons for each of its 320 square miles (823 SQ KMS).
`Naskr said at least 25,000 Refugees a day were entering Bangaon one of the few border crossaage…’
There are no immigration formalities as the refugees cross inteo India, walking beneath a huge jackfruit tree and alongside a stone plliar that markes the border. Most refugees came only with the few clothes they carry on their heads-plus a lantern that they use for light in the evening. The more prosperous cross in Bullock carts.
Those refugees who don’t find any room in the 23 relief camps in Bongaon trek toward Calcutta and the main road leading to the city is filled with East Pakistan families.
Refugees who have taken shelter in Bongaon have begun to face a new problem:
Resentment from the local population that they already outnumber.
`Everything has a limit, said chief Exeutive Naskar, “Our people were friendly initially, but now they are changing.’
He said the regular bongaon residents resent working as laborers for as little as 75 paisa (10 cents) a day -a quarter the normal rete and occupying the local schools that were due to reopen June 15 atter the summer vacation.
“We want our schools vacated, the teachers tell me, `Naskar said. “I Tell them if you can keep the refugee away, then reopen them But no one is prepared to turn the refugees away.”
Indonesian Observer, 20 July 1971
সূত্র: আন্তর্জাতিক গণমাধ্যম ও মুক্তিযুদ্ধ ১৯৭১ . ১ম খণ্ড – মুনতাসীর মামুন