The magnitude of one of the biggest human migrations, that of East Pakistanis fleeing to India, remains in doubt but the best estimates put the number between 6.5 and 9.4 million refugees.

Pakistan estimates the refugees at two million and says that 200,000 have already voluntarily returned. But neutral observers in India, Washington and the United Nations generally discount these figures.

The Bengali refugees began crossing the border six months ago as the Pakistani Army sought to crush the independence movement in East Pakistan. Their swollen ranks in India are taxing that country's economy and creating tensions in overcrowded refugee camps that many fear could lead to starvation and violence.

Suspicions on Figures

Hostility between India and Pakistan has led some to be suspicious of each country's estimate of the number of refugees. The absence of large foreign relief teams that might assist in counting, plus the difficulty of monitoring the 1,350‐mile border, has meant that outsiders have had little choice but to rely on the official figures.

Interviews with various observers, however, have shown that most experts lean toward India's estimate of 9.4 million, which is about the population of New Jersey and Connecticut combined. India says that tens of thousands of refugees continue to cross the border daily.

All representatives of foreign governments and international relief agencies in India working with the refugees, for example, say they have no reason to question the Indian figures— and for the purpose of working out the refugees' food, shelter and medical care needs, they have accepted them.

The Indian tally‐9,350,852 as of Oct. 14—is based on the number of registration cards and ration cards issued to the refugees.

Registration cards are compulsory under India's Foreigners Act, even for the three million refugees who are said to be living outside the nearly 1,000 refugee camps, in the homes of friends or relatives. Without a ration card, no refugee can receive daily food from the government.

There are registration centers at many points along the border, but Indian officials say that with such a long frontier, some refugees living outside camps may not have been registered.

‘Double‐Check System’

“The over ‐ all figure is not one pulled out of a hat,” said a World Bank report in India. “This double‐check system [registration and ration cards] would seem to give the numbers a good deal of reliability.”

United Nations officials, while declining to give their own estimates, are inclined to believe the total is at least 6.5 million. This was the estimate of a World Bank official there last week. In Washington, State Department officials said last week that India's figures were considered “generally accurate.”

The Pakistani Government based its count of 2,002,623 refugees as of Sept. 1 on a house‐to‐house survey it conducted in East Pakistan. Terming India's figures exaggerated and “based on hearsay and subjective estimates,” Pakistan invited “an impartial scrutiny under United Nations auspices” to verify her count. Some observers in Pakistan believe that the Government would not have suggested a United Nations study unless its figures were substantially correct.

Pakistan's contention that several hundred thousand refugees have returned to East Pakistan is rebutted by foreigners who have been taken on official visits to reception centers there, where they say they have found only a handful of refugees, and sometimes none.

Some foreign relief workers in India say they have discovered that at some Pakistani reception centers the Government had a staff of “professional refugees” who were produced whenever visitors arrived.