PUTKHALI, Pakistan, Oct. 10—The adults peered cautiously out of the darkness of their mud huts. But the children, who have recovered more quickly from the upset of warfare, poured out to stare and giggle and smile bashfully at the strange foreign visitors.

Several sucked avidly on green ice‐cream sticks bought from the local equivalent of a Good Humor man who had travelled by boat from India, only about a mile away across the Ichamati River, which marks the border.

The children made things look normal, but Putkhali is an unusual village in East Pakistan.

Withdrawal to Safer Regions

In late March, when the Pakistani Army began its offensive to try to crush the East Pakistani secessionist movement, West Pakistani troops moved into the village, terrorizing and torturing and forcing the people to cut down their rice and jute and their banana and mango trees so insurgent Bengali guerrillas would be denied cover for ambushes.

The troops knocked down and burned many huts, but they did not kill anyone in the village. Yet the villagers, afraid that the restraint would not last long, fled, most of them across the Ichamati into India.

Three months later, in early July, the troops known as Mukti Bahini of Bangle Desh (Liberation Forces of the Bengal Nation), who were reorganized and reinforced, pushed back into the area and, by persistent harassment, forced the thinly stretched Pakistani troops to withdraw to safer areas.

The villagers began to come back, slowly at first and then in larger numbers, so that the population has grown to 1,400—almost normal, except for the absent Hindus, who have been special targets of the Moslem troops. Not one of the several Hindu families from the village has returned from India, and people do not think they ever will.

Putkhali is part of one of several “liberated areas,” all enclaves in East Pakistan, adjoining India. The Bangle Desh forces say that this piece of liberated ground, in Jessore District, encompasses about 100 square miles and that it is attached to another stretch, in Khulna District, of about 200 square miles, with a total population of perhaps 150,000.

Probing and Sniping

Accurate figures are not ‘available, but an educated guess is that all the liberated areas together comprise perhaps 1,000 square miles, which may sound like a lot until it is put alongside the area of East Pakistan‐55,100 square miles.

Though the guerrillas have been steadily expanding their control, the phrase “liberated area” can be deceptive. Parts are swamp and jungle that the army has always considered inaccessible and not worth defending. In some cases the West Pakistani troops are still holed up at fortified places in the freed territory.

An army contingent is near a village called Sikri, only about two miles from the Putkhali strip. The guerrillas constantly probe and snipe at the army bunkers—there was a skirmish the night before the foreign visitors arrived—but the troops have held on, supplied occasionally by a larger concentration along the railway line to the north.

The villagers of Putkhali, though initially wary of the visitors, seemed to feel fairly secure under guerrilla protection.

“The Mukti Bahini are here, so we are here,” said Aizuddin Mondal, a farmer. “We are safe now.”

Because of the forced destruction of the crops, times are hard, and recent monsoon floods added to the woe. But these are tough, survival‐oriented people who have struggled through almost yearly natural disasters —if not manmade ones —and they are scraping by again.

Some rice escaped the army's eye and some of the cut jute was salvageable. Part of this silvery, high-quality jute was drying in the fierce sun on frames in family compounds. Other jute, already dry and bundled, was being loaded onto boats to be taken to India for sale. The money earned, both Indian and Pakistani, is used for food and other commodities — salt, cooking oil, kerosene, clothing —that are scarce.

In devastated jute fields the villagers have planted rice, some of which is half grown now; food crops take priority over cash crops.

Dispensary Was Razed

Some mud huts have been repaired. Others, abandoned by Hindu families, lie in rubble. The village dispensary was razed and a village clubhouse was burned out. The long one‐story primary school building is intact, but the army burned the benches and tables and it is closed. A poster of Sheik Mujibur Rahman, the jailed leader of East Pakistan, has been pasted on the building.

That the school is not functioning seems the least of the village's losses. The old people, their spirits least able to rebound, appear to have suffered most.

“Look at what they have done to us,” said a weeping, wrinkled man with a flowing white beard as he emerged from the ruins of his hut. “They have destroyed everything, even the trees. Please help us!”

A blind woman was husking the other villagers’ rice with a crude wooden machine she operated with her foot—which is hard work. “What else can I do?” she asked. “I have to make a few pennies to eat.”

Although the guerrillas run things in the area, there is little of what is normally known as government.

The No. 2 guerrilla officer, Flight Lieut. Jamal Uddin Choudhury, formerly of the air force, went through an elaborate ceremony of stamping six‐hour visas on visitors’ passports, but it was more for the news photographers than anything else.

Tax Collection Suspended

As for civil administration, collection of taxes has been suspended because of the economic troubles and legal disputes are being handled in Solomonic fashion. “The only administration,” Lieutenant Choudhury said, “is a matter of just keeping law and order. If two men have a dispute over land, for example, we listen and then hand down a compromise. Just simple justice.”

The combat commander of the 158‐man company that defends the immediate area is Second Lieut. Akhtar Uzzaman, a 25‐year‐old college graduate who was also recently graduated from the military academy at Kakul, in West Pakistan. He was home in East Pakistan awaiting his commission when the fighting broke out in March.

His troops and their weapons, some single‐shot, looked ragtag, but morale was high even though most of the men are nonprofessionals and are from other parts of East Pakistan and do not know what has happened to their families.

A straight‐talking and determined young man, the lieutenant spoke often of the willing personal sacrifices of his men. “We have no discipline or morale problems,” he said. “All are here for sacrifice. All are motivated.”

Long Struggle Foreseen

Asked how long the struggle would take, he replied without hesitation: “It could take two years.” Some Bengali political workers around him groaned and tried to contradict him, saying that victory was imminent, but he stood fast.

He was vague on only one subject—casualties. He said his were very low and the Pakistanis’ were heavy.

Lieutenant Uzzaman, who spoke reasonably good English and seemed partly Americanized, laughed when he heard American curses and told a visitor that he had a sportshirt just like his, a gift from one of the two American Peace Corps workers who became his friends in 1964 while he was an undergraduate in Jessore.

He named them—William Russell of Forest Knoll, Calif., and Donald Villencourt of Boston—and said with pride as the visitors were leaving: “Please send my best wishes to them. And tell them am fighting inside Bangla Desh,”