Calcutta, April 20
The danger of clashes between Indian and Pakistan troops along the border between West and East Bengal has somewhat receded, in the view of West Bengal Government officials, None the less, small Indian troop reinforcements have been sent to the border.

Units of the 2nd Sikh Light Infantry have been dispatched in the past few days to the frontier opposite the Dinajpur and Meherpur sectors of East Bengal where there has been a particularly heavy flow of refugees.

Indian troops elsewhere along the border are believed to be present in no more than company strength. Patrolling and guard duty is still in the hands of the paramilitary border security force.

General S. H. F. J. Manekshaw, the Chief of Staff of the Indian Army, visited Calcutta yesterday to discuss the border situation with officials of the West Bengal Government.

There is some concern that refugees may include agitators and agents provocateurs infiltrated by the West Pakistan military authorities for the purpose of encouraging communal friction on the Indian side of the border.

Armed civilians and members of the East Pakistan Rifles and the East Bengal Regiment, the mainstay of the " liberation" forces, will be given the choice of relinquishing their weapons and accepting the status of refugees or of returning to East Bengal.

There can be no question, officials here insist, of their being allotted to use Indian territory as a sanctuary from which to launch hit-and-run attacks.

The situation would, of course, be completely different if the Indian Government were to recognize an independent Bangla Desh. This. however, does not appear imminent.

The possibility of West Pakistan troops straying over the border by accident in "hot pursuit " of liberation army units is not ruled out but it is considered, on the whole, unlikely as the frontier is reasonably well marked.

So far, when the Pakistan Army has pushed right up to the border, as at Meherpur in the north and Benapole in the south, it has always pulled back to a safe distance soon afterwards.

Attention is now turning to the economic pressure on the Pakistan Government authorities. Their ability, in purely military terms, to control the main towns, roads and airfields in East Bengal, in spite of pockets of resistance in some areas, is not seriously doubted but the economic price of maintaining and supplying some 80,000 troops—more than double the number in East Pakistan a month ago—will be stiff.

Disruption of the jute harvest, exports of which amount for nearly half of Pakistan's total foreign exchange earnings, would be a serious blow to an already faltering economy. Reliable reports from East Bengal say that in some areas the peasants and farmers have been pulling up the jute crop and planting rice instead because of fear of a food shortage.

The Army is in a position to regulate the supply of food because of its control of the main ports and towns where large food silos are located. Food rationing is likely to be used as an instrument to encourage the cooperation of a hostile population.

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Delhi, April 20-India today turned down a Pakistan request for the eviction of Mr Hossain Ali, the defecting Deputy High Commissioner, and his staff from the Commission building in Calcutta to make room for their replacement, it was officially learnt here today.

Mr. Ali and about 80 people on his staff declared their support for the secessionist government of Bangla Desh last Sunday.