Dacca, June 22
Dacca, although returning slowly to a semblance of normality, is still a tense and unnaturally quiet city. By early afternoon in particular a sense of emptiness prevails.

About threequarters of the shops and stores are closed. Even in the more crowded bazaar areas there is little feeling of animation.

Visible evidence of the damage done by the Army’s intervention on March 25 is slight, except in the shanty town districts where large tracts were razed to the ground.

The Jagannath and Iqbal halls of Dacca University, which were alleged to have served as guerrilla training centres, are deserted and forlorn. Jagannath, which was attacked by an Army tank, shows evidence of much damage freshly patched up.

The presence of the Army, moving about in truck or on foot, is very visible. Cars and other vehicles are frequently stopped in the streets and searched for weapons. Targets of occasional bomb-throwing have included the Intercontinental Hotel. In general, however, there is now a degree of security in Dacca that is not known in many other towns.

The period of arbitrary arrests and sudden disappearances appears to be tailing off somewhat. By all reliable accounts, fear is still very apparent in the province as a whole, but in the capital it is giving way to a sullen resentment.

The martial law authorities are striving to reconstitute the police force of some 25,000 men who either defected to the rebels in March or were destroyed by the Army.

The police force is now estimated io number about 15,000 men. According to informed sources these consist of some 5,000 men brought over from the west wing and about 10,000 locally drawn recruits, the vast majority of them Bihari Muslims. Non-Bengalis arc also being used to reestablish the East Pakistan Rifles
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Systematic hunt for Hindus

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which went over to the rebels virtually to a man, under the name of the "civil armed forces", of whose numbers theft is no reliable estimate.

Thus the composition of the forces of law and order in this predominantly Bengali province is now essentially non-Bengali, a fact that seems calculated to perpetuate and exacerbate the communal hatreds that have been the cause of so much of the bloodshed in this part of the world.

Out in the country, according to reliable sources, the Army is still systematically hunting down the Hindu population. Burnt-out villages are to be found all along the road from Dacca to Nasirabad, for example, and parts of the Dacca-Rajshahi road. This policy appears to be conducted from the highest levels.

The Army now claims to be in complete control of the interior of the province. But there is reliable evidence that small units of resistance fighters have established bases in the Madhupur forest preserve in Nasirabad district and In the Gopalganj swamps in the southern part of Faridpur district.

Most of the guerrilla activity, however, is directed against the border areas from sanctuaries on Indian soil. Considerable two-way artillery fire is reported across the frontier in the west, effectively preventing refugees from returning to East Pakistan even if they wished to do so.

In the east the rebels are directing their efforts against the Sylhet tea-growing district two Scottish tea planters have been kidnapped and are feared dead and against the all-important railway line from Chittagong to Dacca.

This line, which is vital for the transport of loud and other supplies, runs right along the border in many places and is therefore acutely vulnerable to attack. It has been rendered inoperable by the destruction of an important bridge to the north of the town of Feni. It is unlikely that the damage can be easily repaired.

The disruption of this rail connexion means that all the food supplies unloaded at Chittagong have to be transported into the interior by boat. This hinders effective distribution of food to such an extent that widespread famine is feared by the end of the year.

Informed sources say there is enough grain stored in silos in most district centres to last lor another two months. But grain stocks have declined by some 50 per cent during the past two months or so. Some of the silos were also damaged during the recent fighting.

It is distribution, none the less, which is the main problem. Most boats, essential during the rainy season, and other means of surface transport have been commandeered by the military. Fifty assault craft donated by the United States back in December for cyclone relief are still in the hands of the Army

Leading article, page 17