Chuadanga, East Pakistan. April 9
Bangla Desh (Bengal Nation), the name chosen for an independent East Pakistan by Shaikh Mujibur Rahman, the leader of the Awami League, is certainly a reality in this small town about 15 miles from the Indian border.

The flag of the " freedom fighters ", green with a red circle containing a yellow map of East Pakistan, flies from every other building and from the handlebars of Honda motor cycles and Toyota vehicles. In today's Asia even revolution runs on Japanese wheels.

A tedious trip in a taxi had brought me to the isolated border post of Gede, situated at the end of a railway line some 80 miles north-east of Calcutta. Here the officials of the Indian border security force turn a blind eye as streams of people cross back and forth over what now appears to be a completely open frontier.

After a short walk along a stretch of overgrown railway track I reached a small tent flying the Bangla Desh flag. Inside I presented myself to a group of Awami League civilians.

From here, after much discussion and examination of passports, I was taken by car to Chuadanga along rough roads winding through small villages of thatch-and-mud huts. As we passed, groups of children would raise their fists shouting "Jai Bangla" (Victory to Bengal), the ubiquitous slogan of Shaikh Mujib's followers.

In Chuadanga, as in other places in the rebel-held western regions of East Pakistan, civil servants, district magistrates, professional men and politicians are organizing guerrilla resistance to the West Pakistan Army units sent in by President Yahya Khan to crush the independence movement. They seem to have the full support of both the population and the police force.

"What we are fighting against is an attempt at total genocide" Dr. Ashabul Huq, the "chief adviser to the liberation forces", told me over tea and biscuits: "They [the West Pakistan Army) are raping our women, tearing our children to pieces, massacring our students, professors and lawyers- They want to rule a country of slaves and prostitutes. What more does the world want to hear before it will take sides?"
There was a subdued murmur of approval, felt rather than heard, from the throng who Pressed round us in the small, bare bedroom where Dr. Huq received me.

Outside clusters of curious children pressed their faces against the wire netting of the windows. Dr. Huq shooed them away from time to time but they always returned a moment or two later. On the wall above us, a garlanded photograph of Shaikh Mujib presided over the proceedings.

The "shameful neutrality" of certain "big powers" was a theme to which Dr. Huq, his voice vibrating theatrically, returned several times. On each occasion, although neither Britain nor any other country was ever mentioned by name, I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. The arrival of more tea and biscuits relieved the tension.

It would not have been easy in that crowded room to explain just why too much public championing of one side or the other by outsiders might do more harm than good. Nor was it the moment to voice fears that the bloodbath in Dacca might lead, indeed already has led in some instances, to a wave of reprisal killings of non-Bengalis, whether Muslims or not.
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President Yahya accused of using famine tactics
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There is no mistaking the Bengali nationalist fever that has been aroused by the appalling brutality of the Army. Many Indian journalists mistaken for Punjabis—everybody from West Pakistan, whether he be Sindhi, Punjabi or Pathan is a "Punjabi" to the Bengalis—have experienced some nasty moments. The undercurrent of racial animosity is all too tangible.

Dr. Huq, a handsome man with greying hair, practised medicine before the present troubles began and was also active in local politics. Now he carries a pistol at his hip. He appears to be the senior member of a group of civilian volunteers working closely with Major Muhammad Abu Osman, a Bengali Army officer commanding the resistance forces in the Kushtia district.

Chuadanga was bombed and strafed last Saturday by Sabre jets of the Pakistan Air Force, according to Bangla Desh officials here.

Everything I saw in the western border region confirmed the impression, which has been gaining ground for some days now, that the resistance forces, led by the Bengal Regiment, the East Pakistan Rifles and the police, are capable of holding the countryside for an indefinite period.



Delhi, April 9.—The East Bengal "Liberation Army" today claimed to have captured the town of Rajshahi and the airfields of Lalmonirhat, Shalutighar and Shamshernagar in the Rangpur and Sylhet districts, according to the Press Trust of India.