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Background: The monsoon season in Bengal has long been feared by health and relief workers for its effect on refugees from East Pakistan. ??? Camps have been flooded and food supplies cut off. But an unexpected development is the effect it has had on the Mukti Fouj -- the Bangladesh liberation army. The Bangladesh liberation fighters now claim control of large areas of East Bengal. Floods and rainfalls have made the areas almost inaccessible to regular Pakistan troops, leaving them open to the Mukti Fouj.

This film shows the flooded fields and villages almost deserted by the East Pakistan refugees in India; and some of the fifteen villages the Bangladesh liberation army claims to control. One of the regular Pakistan army field posts is shown bombed-out with a Bangladesh flag flying over the nearby village.

SYNOPSIS: The monsoon season in Bengal has added the misery of the Pakistan refugees. The camps were originally built on the only available land - the low-lying land. And this is the first land to be flooded. Most refugees have left the area to set up temporary home on the high-lying roads. But of the 21,000 refugees in this camp 1,000 stayed behind. The river Jelangi used to run by this camp. Now it runs through it.

The Mukti Fouj - the Bangladesh Liberation - claims to control some of the land inside East Pakistan. They bombed this headquarters of the regular Pakistan area and claim control of fifteen villages at the border, in East Pakistan.

Pakistani troops attacked this area three times earlier in the campaign, but the floods and rain secured it for the Bangladesh fighters. During the fighting many of the civilians fled from what was on??? one of the most densely populated areas on earth. Now there are more cattle than people.

Some have stayed behind to save what the is left of the crop, but they are few.

The Bangladesh liberation army has its own Red Cross doctors. This one says his one of seven who visit the camps regularly with medicine and vitamins. But the organisation has no transport, or administration....and the army itself in a put-together outfit of volunteers and former regular soldiers wearing a mixture of uniforms and civilian clothing. Arms are in short supply, especially automatic small arms. Most of the arms have been captured from the Pakistan regulars, others belonged to the East Pakistan rifles.

The advances of the Bangladesh Liberation army are due to the monsoon season, an unexpected development. But when the monsoon season ends in Autumn and these trails dry out it could be a different story - it will be more accessible to Pakistani regulars. In the meantime Bangladesh has made a small foothold. 50-pound explosive accounted for this military post. Bangladesh officers claim to have lost three men in this skirmish killing ten. This Chinese automatic submachine gun was captured....now a Bangladesh officer carries it. The area controlled here by the Bangladesh fighters is a 60 mile long corridor, eight to fifteen miles wide. Though the monsoon season has helped these fighters, the civilian refugees have suffered even more. If there is no political settlement by the Autumn and fighting breaks out again, it will be once again the civilian refugees who suffer most.