Dacca, April 11
A forest of green and white Pakistani national flags flutters today over this cowed and submissive city. The flags of Bangla Desh, the independent state 75 million Bengalis aspired to set up in the eastern wing of Pakistan, have been hauled down or burned. To display one now would risk summary execution.

President Yahya Khan's troops patrol the city in jeeps and commandeered trucks, their rifles and sub-machine guns at the ready. In the teeming working class districts they roam through a black wilderness of ashes and charred bamboo stumps. The huts burnt like matchwood when the army stormed in to crush the secessionist movement of Shaikh Mujibur Rahman, leader of the Awami League, on the night of March 25.

Diplomats in Dacca estimate that up to 6,000 people were killed in a well-prepared assault.

The crack of rifle shots still punctuates the night as troops round up Awami League officials, intellectuals and other prominent Bengalis. "This is Gestapo rule", one western diplomat commented. "The army has committed mass murder."

While the army turns a blind eye, looting by non-Bengalis from West Pakistan is commonplace. Thousands of families are still fleeing the city to return to their native villages.

Dacca University remains closed. Student dormitories are strewn with the litter of violence and pocked with bullet holes. Neutral observers estimate that between 300 and 500 students were shot and killed when they attempted to resist the army's takeover of the city.

Eyewitnesses claim that many were lined up against a wall and mown down by machine guns. At least eight prominent faculty professors were shot and killed.

The East Pakistan police have been disarmed, as have survivors of the East Bengal Regiment and the East Pakistan Rifles who led the resistance. Many are held prisoner.

Dacca is clamped under a 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew. To avoid the attention of foraging troops and gangs of non-Bengali looters, many families sit at home at night with their house lights extinguished.

Most senior civil servants are back at their desks although many of their employees have stayed away from work. Shops have reopened and essential services are functioning almost normally.

Troops from West Pakistan continue to pour in by air to step up operations against areas of the country still held by the secessionists. About 10,000 are believed to have arrived since President Yahya khan's attempt to keep his country intact. It brings their strength to an estimated 35,000. Previous reports that there were some 70,000 West Pakistani troops in the province are regarded as exaggerated.

Street sellers are doing a roaring trade in Pakistani national flags, the symbol here of surrender. "No one speaks above a whisper of Bangla Desh. We have put up Pakistani flags only for fear of the gun ", said one Bengali farmer. "But Bangla Desh is still in our hearts." -- A.P.

Michael Hornsby writes: Pakistan Army units continued to press hard today on towns along the western border of East Bengal still under the tenuous control of the "Bangla Desh" independence movement. It seems only a matter of days before the Army establishes itself in this region, thus gaining sway over all the main urban centres in East Pakistan.

Air raids and artillery bombardment were reported by Indian intelligence today on both Dinajpur, in the north, and Kushtia, farther south. The towns of Rajshahi and Pabna were also under pressure from the Army. The only regular troops the resistance forces have in these areas are small and poorly equipped contingents of the East Pakistan Rifles and the Bengal Regiment.

Pakistan Army units moving west from Jessore are reported to be within a mile or so of the Indian border. Several thousand refugees have come across the border in the past week.

The Pakistan army appear to have no immediate logistics problem. even though operating more than 1,000 miles from home. Supplies and reinforcements are being flown into Dacca and Jessore as well as the eastern towns of Sylhet and Comilla. The army also has control of the key waterways.
World conflict dangers, page 5.
Pakistan Massacre, page 10