Congressional Record

I decided to take leave from my internship training in United States to understand what was going on exactly and to learn about my family.

On the third week of April I reached Agartala on the eastern border of East Bengal, from New York via Calcutta. There I saw a large number of refugees in different camps in different schools and college buildings. The student leaders of Bangla Desh were staying in the MBB College Hostel (dormitory), and there were many doctors, engineers and professors also. Here I got more details and descriptive information about the situation at different places of Bangla Desh at that time from old friends, acquaintances and some relatives of mine.

Then, I naturally tried to get information on my locality and my family.

On the third day I went home to visit my parents, brothers, sisters and my grandfather. Other close relatives also had taken shelter from the nearby towns in our home in the village.

Fighting was raging all day and night and sounds of mortar and heavy artillery guns were adding to the almost continuous automatic small arms fire, and everybody was scared. In spite of all these frightening situations, my father was also stubborn to stay home and not flee to India because the total number of the families, including my uncles is more than a hundred persons and it is impossible to shift them. The situation of refugees in India was already hopeless. And everybody hoped that international efforts and voices will come to a quick rescue.

I went away to join the Mukti Fawj (Liberation Army) next day. I was taken to their headquarters at a secret place and the leaders of the command wanted to know in details about the world opinion, and U.S. public and government reactions. They were very enthusiastic and in very high morale. Since then, up to the 15th of June I worked with the Mukti Fawj, and got the following impression of the situation:

1.A - Control of cities and towns at present belong to the West Pakistan Army and that is by dint of their terror tactics, but the Freedom Fighters are still able to sabotage and throw grenades inside all the cities. The city and town populations in any place has not exceeded 50 percent of the original.

1.B - Control of the villages belong to the Mukti Fawj and the villagers help and sympathise with them. But the West Pakistan army punishes these villages by their heinous "operations". At the present moment maximum killing, burning and looting are being conducted in the villages - where the world does not see or know much. The West Pakistan Army of course fails totally to have control in the villages because the villagers are hard working, painstaking and freedom loving people.

They defy rule of terror and prefer to flee at the earliest sign of approaching West Pakistan Army and when opportunities come, they participate in resistance. They give purposefully wrong informations and make the West- Pakistan Army take troublesome, muddy and difficult routes - and again send information to the nearest Mukti Fawj hideout for immediate ambushing.

1.C - Civil Administration: Only exists symbolically in the cities and towns at a strength of 25-40% of the original and only the top bosses are working. These people could not escape to safety, The common scene in any office in Dacca is the timely signing of the attendance register.

Then the officials ask each other questions about what the colleagues know and all kind of rumors of success and failure of the Mukti Fawj are discussed. Some one would suggest that already 200,000 boys have been drafted, and maybe someone says "last night so many were killed in an ambush in Tangail" then at the presence of any West Pakistani colleague they change the subject and start discussing the cost of living and maybe about the whereabouts of their relatives. Office files move only on the priority basis and lots of them get stuck up due to the constant lack of personnel and due to confusion and chronic tension, mistakes and messing up add to their efficiency! Orders are written in the paper - to imaginary personnel - and then forgotten. Mails do not run to most of the places.

Road transport services run between Dacca and Narayanganj. Comilla and Daood Kandi only about 50 miles in all outside the cities.

The rest of the thousands of miles of roads are out of any use. The bridges blown off - mines laid by the Freedom Fighters and the West Pakistan Army make it perilous even for pedestrians. One cannot go to Sylhet or Chittagong by the metaled motorable road that were being used before the fighting started. These roads are the vital links between the port of Chittagong and the capital city of Dacca.

Railways also are out of commission between Chittagong port and Dacca, the capital. Between Khulna and Jessore, between Jessore and Rajshashi and all over in the Northern areas. Only train runs between Dacca and Brahman Baria, Dacca and Mymenshing, which is about one tenth of the total railway system - irregular and always out of schedule. As a result goods and commodities cannot be carried from one place to another. One can go to stations on the railway track under the control of the Freedom Fighters.

2.A In the cities curfews were imposed until last week and at night the silent operations continued. Searching the Bengali houses - arresting the capable young men and taking away the girls. Looting of valuables and money of course occurs even in day time in the check posts. In the name of body-searching the pockets are emptied. It does not matter if the victim was going for shopping or if he had the pay-day of the month.

2.B In the villages the intensity of their operations is more severe. The first available villagers are forced to identify the homes of college students, Bengali army men and policemen as well as the Hindus. At some places they forced the villagers to "loot" and set fire to these houses and then took photographs of the "local miscreants" for display of their attempt to restore law and order.

Girls are kept naked in isolated houses and their perverted behaviours manifest in innumerable towns and camps. Some of these camps have beer raided and the girls rescued.

2.C Dead bodies can still be found even near Dacca at a place called Mirpur under a bridge .

2,D Blood is collected from the arrested young men and some of them thrown in the streets unconscious. This happens where blood banks exist for the wounded West Pakistani soldiers.

3.A - The resistance fight of the Mukti Fawj is most intense on the vital road-railway and other communication routes where any attempt by the West Pakistan Army brings them havoc by ambushes. Raids are conducted on the West Pakistan Army positions. The occasional attempts of the West Pakistan Army to send patrols meet with such reply that they prefer not to go in less than a hundred strength and go back to their bases before darkness. They better not dream of sealing of the border. The Freedom Fighters courier service can bring one any Information from any place within the country.

The supply of arms and ammunition of the Freedom Fighters come from the initial amount they could carry away at the time of revolt and is still sufficient in quantity. Then there are frequent left overs collected from the ambushed West Pakistan Army units.

3.B - Peoples morales is very high and they are only waiting for any chance to do their part .

Mukti Fawj territories are everywhere outside the cities but strongholds exist where the West Pakistan army cannot penetrate due to lack of communication routes. These are located scatteredly. One can visit some of these strongholds by arrangement with the Mukti Fawj.

4.A - The morale of the West Pakistan Army is definitely not as high as their bosses in the GHQ of Pindi and Dacca. Looting, raping and desire to survive and enjoy these fringe benefits have made them goats. They prefer to press triggers and just empty belts after belts of ammunition from the safety of their bunkers when the Mukti Fawj provokes them. They shell hundred rounds of artillery in reply to a few small armbursts. Water and mud is something they do not like to get into. They have reinforcements of irregulars or paramilitia from the West Pakistani Tribal people (Tochi scout, Chitral scout, etc.) who never saw tropical rain and its effect on soft soil and swamps.

The reported official casualty of the West Pakistan Army confirmed by an officer on the 7th of May was 14,697 men and officers. Then the daily death toll of at least a hundred ever since. But no confirmation was available from Dacca DHQ after the 7th of May.

4.B - The reasons of the great Mukti Fawj success are understandable - more than any other factor their motivation and their acquaintance with the terrain and the climate. They can survive on anything edible. The villagers are friendly and the intelligence net-work is superb. Small kids and old men equally serve the intelligence net-work.

5.A - Refugees: The refugee situation in India is massive and unparalelled in history and there is no end envisaged until an acceptable solution is reached to this mass murder. At present the refugees are mostly coming from the Interior and Coastal districts of Faridpur and Barisal. The West Pakistani army is using small naval vessels to penetrate deep and many of them were provided for relief work in the last November cyclone by the sympathetic foreign people. There is nothing new in their attitude towards people of Bengal, after all everything is planned. The major segments of the refugees are Hindus and of the muslems the educated ones and those capable of leadership are being chased away.

5.B Cholera and other gastrointestinal diseases have broken out all over and people are dying without any care or help. Doctors and pharmacists have either escaped or have nothing available to cope with these epidemics.

6.A - Food situation: In Bangla Desh is very aggravated and lack of transportation and collapse of earning capacities have made it impossible for the less- fortunate to procure food. Markets do not open in the country-side, Kerosine and salt come from India in the border belt of 25 miles and from the cities in the interior through the individual families own efforts. No one invests money in small grocery business, because Of fear of looting and all kinds of uncertainties. After all, everybody has to run away to the next villages when the army comes.

6.B Production in the industries ranged between 15 and 25 percent of the original capacity. The laborers have been so brutally killed or beaten that the rest of them have either joined the Mukti Fawj or, at least. gone to their own families ill the villages or migrated to India.