Rawalpindi, Pakistan - At noon the other day Aminul Huq Badshah, a political fugitive with a price on his head, drove down the busiest street in Dacca, East Pakistan's capital.
Shielded only by sunglasses, Mr. Badshah toured past police and West Pakistani troops guarding sand-bagged locations against infiltrators like him.
His appearance illustrated the Army's difficulties in trying to seal East Pakistan's borders against rebels — and even of identifying them.
Mr. Badshah was press secretary to the jailed Awami League leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. After the Army cracked down on the party last March, Mr. Badshah fled to India to become a spokesman for East Bengal rebels.

Others wander

He has not been the only rebel to wander about East Pakistan. For the resistance movement, such journeys are a gesture. But they underline the gap between the rebels' freedom of movement and the narrow areas they actually control in East Pakistan, a crowded land of more than 75 million persons jammed in an area the size of Florida.
Despite continuing resistance in Dacca, at major ports of Chittagong and Chalna, along the borders, and in the interior in Mymensingh and Munshiganj, the rebels have not claimed enough ground so that even their stoutest 'allies, the Indians, would recognize an independent Bangle Desh Bengali land.

Major test

The major test for both sides is approaching.
According to the Pakistan Army, about 50,000 rebels of the Mukti Bahini (Freedom Army in Bengali) will be operating in the East by Nov. 1. The Army says most will have had some training in India.
The ground is too soft now for vehicles or for troops on foot. But it will harden next month about the time relief agencies are making an immense effort to move food about to avert famine.
Virtually all parties fear that the scarcity of food will launch another large refugee exodus into India, intensifying the danger of open war between Pakistan and India. Threatening relief workers accused of collaborating with the Army, the rebels exacerbate the situation by campaigning against the food shipments.

Elections set

Dec. 12.23 elections will fill national and provincial assembly seats vacated when the Army disqualified 273 Awami League members elected last December.
The new campaigners, mostly from parties defeated by the Awami League, are expected to become targets of the Mukti Bahini — in much the same way as collaborating members of Army-organized peace committees. Peace - committee sources say at least 600 workers have been murdered since April.

Loss estimated

Unofficial estimates say the Pakistan Army in six months has taken about 8,000 casualties. More and more it is giving over military duties to locally recruited militia and volunteers, many of them as young as 14. Sources at the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul, West Pakistan, report 47 of the 147 members of the
school's last graduating
class have been killed or wounded in the East.
In West Pakistan criticism is being heard more frequently of President Yahya Khan. The widespread support six months ago for keeping East Pakistan, even with force, appears to be fraying.