NEW DELHI, Dec. 25—Indian officials say their Government feels it will have to keep its army in East Pakistan for many months before conditions there are stable enough to remove it.

“Perhaps after three or four months, we may be able to start thinning the army out,” one high Indian official said.

Indian civil servants on loan to the Bengalis’ provisional regime in Dacca may have to stay on even longer to continue the task of reviving the region's disrupted economy, restoring its badly damaged communications system and in general putting it on its feet.

[India's Foreign Minister, Swaran Singh, said in New Delhi that President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan would be making a “grievous mistake” if he believed that the eastern region was still part of Pakistan, Reuters reported.]

India Politically Embarrassed

The leadership of Bangladesh, or Bengal Nation, as the Bengali secessionists call their country, took over on Dec. 16 when the West Pakistani troops in the country surrendered to the Indians who had seized Dacca in support of the Bengali guerrillas’ movement.

All the evidence indicates that the Indian Government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi would like to remove the Indian Army from the eastern region if only because of the heavy expense. But beyond that, the Indians are politically embarrassed by the leadership vacuum there and the large role India must play—since this feeds the arguments of critics that India wants to annex East Pakistan.

Virtually all foreign diplomats here share the Indian assessment of the volatile situation and the need for keeping the army on. They regard as myopic, for example, the Nixon Administration's call for immediate withdrawal of the Indian troops, since they believe that without the soldiers there probably would be massacres by Bengalis seeking revenge against those who collaborated with the Pakistani troops.

No one knows exactly how many Bengalis were killed during the nine months of West Pakistan's drive against the Secessionists but diplomats in Dacca believe the toll was in the hundreds of thousands—and maybe even a million or More. Many of those killed were the region's elite—college students, professors, engineers, doctors, civil servants—and some massacres were carried but in the days just before the Pakistani surrender, apparently as a last act to strip the new Bengali nation of leadership.

Razakars Still Armed

The killing was done by both the Pakistani central Government's troops, and civilian Militiamen—particularly the razakars, home guards drawn largely from the non‐Bengali minorities who are generally grouped under the name of Bihari.

Many of the razakars are still armed and in hiding throughout the country. Also armed are most of the Mukti Bahini, the Bengali guerrilla force that so effectively harassed the Pakistani troops for months until the Indian Army moved in.

Many young guerrillas are now hunting razakars and other collaborators, despite the efforts of the Indian Army and the civilian officials to discourage reprisals.

Bengali student leaders who were firebrands in the days before the Pakistani crackdown in the East and who became guerrilla heroes during the liberation struggle are refusing to turn in their arms. They say they will not do so as long as Sheik Mujibur Rahman, the East Pakistani political leader, remains a prisoner in West Pakistan.

Demand Mujib's Release

At a news conference in Dacca yesterday, four student leaders declared: “Our war will not end until the sheik is released. So long as the sheik is not with us, our independence is not complete.

“We shall surrender our arms only if he directs us to do so. The armed Pakistani miscreants and their collaborators are still at large.”

The reference to “armed Pakistani miscreants” was to Pakistani soldiers who have changed to civilian clothes and who have been roaming the countryside in groups.

In an attempt to ease the situation, Indian and local government officials are trying to persuade the Mukti Bahini and other groups to join a special, and temporary, national militia to maintain law and order and to work on reconstruction.

Officials hope that the reopening of the universities will help cool and rechannel the emotions of the young activists. As a concession to these passions, the Government has announced that it will bring to trial and punish all those found guilty of genocide and other war crimes. Several civilians who served in or collaborated with the government set up by the Pakistani Army were arrested by the Dacca police yesterday on war‐crimes Charges. They included Abdu Mutaleb Malik, former East Pakistani Governor, and eight members of his cabinet.

Biharis in Hiding

It is hoped that punishment will forestall mass reprisals and Will encourage minority groups to lay down their arms. Large groups of Biharis have holed up in some neighborhoods, afraid to venture out. Indian troops have thrown up protective cordons around some of these areas, and officials say hey will try to assure the Biharis of the government's policy of no mass reprisals.

Some executions of collaborators have already been carried out, but most independent observers regard the scale of this violence so far as relatively minor, considering the killings of Bengalis during the crackdown.

Nevertheless, it will take drastic change to soften the ethnic fears and hates. One great stride forward, experts agree, would be the release of Sheik Mujib, considered the only leader with the qualities to command the attention of all Bengalis.