An eyewitness account of the atrocities in East Pakistan says that Hindu men “are being slaughtered wherever they are found and the women and children left to go as refugees to India. Groups of 30 or 40 refugees have been lined up by graves and shot. It is uncertain whether they had been captured, or had voluntarily returned for duty”,

The account is a direct quotation from a letter written by a British resident in East Pakistan and smuggled back to his family living in Britain. It is one of several letters received in this country recently. For obvious reasons the writers’ names cannot be disclosed but there is little reason to doubt their authenticity.

A number of these letters has been forwarded by the recipients to Mr Bruce Douglas Mann, Labour MP for North Kensington, who recently returned from a visit to the border area.

Another letter states; “The basic situation is that there is genocide and colonialism. With regard to the former, there are “Sharpe- villes” and “My Lais” everywhere. The Hindus are taken out and shot. The women and children are not shot (they are so humane!) But you can imagine what their future will be”.

The writer adds : “Until March, I reckoned that Pakistan had a better record than India in the treatment of minorities. But now it is genocide; killing of Hindus only because they are Hindus. Early on Tikka Khan assured all peace-loving citizens that life and property would be safe. Because of this, some Hindu teachers in a Catholic school were urged to have confidence. A few days later the Army came and took them off and that was that”

The situation now is that all Bengalis are terrorized, he writes. “In Government and other offices, Bengalis try to get us talking about the situation, and more than once Bengali Muslims have asked us to pray for them; that, is their only hope, they say.

In a note of despair, a writer tells his family: “The President also says that no peace-loving Pakistani need be afraid to return: but all the time the Army arc still burning and looting Hindu villages; reports have come in the last two days from Kaligram, Khulna district and elsewhere. So the speech was merely an attempt to throw dust in the eye of the outside world. They are still seeking out Hindus in Dacca and rounding them up. Bound and gagged bodies are seen floating down the river”.

Another letter writer says: “There was fighting al Mirpur Bridge a couple of days or so ago in which a number of the Army was killed. There is a report that a soldier on duty at the New Capital Telephone Exchange was injured by shots from a passing car.

"It seems certain that guerrilla warfare is beginning and will intensify. The Army took massive punitive-measures beyond Mirpur Bridge, killing several hundred Bengalis; the Bengalis say a thousand were killed. The future prospects for slaughter and counter-slaughter are terrifying. In view of this I think the folk in Britain have an enormous responsibility."