JESSORE, PAKISTAN, December 8.-The Bengalis danced on
the roofs of buses. They shouted independence slogans in
the streets. They embraced, they cheered. they reached
out in spontaneous emotion to clasp the hands of
visitors from other lands.

For Bengalis, today was "liberation day" in Jessore-the
strategic city in East Pakistan that for eight months,
until yesterday, had been under the control of West
Pakistani troops, who had come last spring to put down
the Bengali rebellion.

The "liberators" are Indian troops. They are almost as
happy as the Bengali secessionists whom India supports,
but they did not have much time today to stop and
celebrate as they continued to chase the retreating West
Pakistani forces southeast toward Khulna.

The Indians, too, waved and smiled and posed for
pictures from the tops of their armored personnel
carriers and tanks while they waited, four miles from
Jessore, for orders to move farther down to the Khulna
road .

"They are fleeing in panic," an infantry captain of the
Seventh Punjab Regiment said of the Pakistani troops.
"They've got good equipment and defenses, but their
morale is in their boots."

Most of the Indian troops are as different from the
Bengalis as the predominantly Punjabi troops from West
Pakistan were because the Indian soldiers are also
heavily Punjab But cultural gaps between the Bengali
secessionists and their Indian backers have been
temporarily erased.

The jubilant Bengalis have pitched in to sustain the
Indian drive by working with Indian troops to throw
pontoon bridges across rivers whose permanent bridges
are being blown up by the Pakistanis as they pull back,
A major bridge has been expertly demolished on the main
road from the Indian border to Jessore, which is 23
miles inside East Pakistan. Five of the six spans of the
steel and concrete bridge lie in the Kabathani River, as
does the railway bridge 200 yards downstream.

The Pakistanis blew these bridges two nights ago as they
retreated to Jessore.

The scene today at the site, which is the town of
Jhingergacha nine miles from Jessore, looked like a
cross between a bucket brigade and the building of the
pyramids.

On the muddy bank below the blown road bridge, hundreds
of Bengalis in long rows passed logs down the line to be
laid as planking for the approaches to a new pontoon
bridge. As they worked in machine-like precision, brawny
troops from the army engineers inflated huge pontoons
with a compressor, carried them through knee-deep muck
to the water and then began placing: the aluminum spans
across them. In four hours, the bridge was finished.
Everyone seemed unusually happy-the Indian troops, the
Bengali workers and even the sidewalk superintendents.

Joyous reunions were taking place in the town of
Jhingergacha between friends and, relatives who had fled
at different times and in different directions to escape
the Pakistani Army and are now slowly returning. Some
had gone to refugee camps in India, others into hiding
in villages in the interior of East Pakistan.

This correspondent also had a reunion standing on the
one intact span of the old bridge. "You remember me?" a
voice asked in English. I did. He was Lieut. Akhtar
Uzzaman, a 25-year-old commander of a company of the
Mukti Bahini (Liberation Forces)-the Bengali insurgents.
Lieutenant Akhtar had first turned up in an enclave held
by the guerrillas southwest of Jessore a month ago. He
said then that it would take the Mukti Bahini at least
two years to win the independence struggle. "That was if
we fought alone," he said today. "Now we have heavy
help."

ATROCITIES REPORTED

"This is a historic bridge for me," he said suddenly. "I
used to come here to sail around on the water in the
moonlight-with my girl friend." He smiled over the
memory.

As a Jeep carrying foreign newsmen rode from
Jhingergacha to Jessore, villagers at the roadside kept
shouting "Joi Bangla!" ("Victory for Bengal!") and
reached out to try to touch the hands of the foreigners.
The atmosphere in Jessore was even more exuberant. As
Indian armored cars rolled by toward the fighting some
miles off, buses filled from seats of roofs exploded in
shouts of "Shadhin Bangla!" ("Independent Bengal!") and
"Sheik Mujib"-a cheer for Sheik Mujibur Rahman, the
leader of East Pakistan who is imprisoned in West
Pakistan.

Some Bengali boys danced in the streets. The green, red
and gold flag of Bangla Desh was fluttering on many
buildings and houses.

For all its decibels, the euphoria was tinged by
sadness.

The crowds in the streets represent only a small part of
the city's original population of 30,000. Some of those
missing will return. Others are dead. Missionaries and
other independent sources say that the Pakistani troops
killed more than 5,000 of Jessore's people.

There have been many reports, hard to confirm, that the
Pakistanis are killing and committing atrocities as they
retreat. One Indian officer said that the Pakistanis had
buried a man alive in a town in the Jessore district.
People in Jhingergacha said some school children had
been shot.

Just outside Jessore, the body of a man was lying in a
field by the road. His left arm had been cut off and his
chest had been scraped raw. Local officials said that
Pakistani troops had killed him because he had passed to
the Indians information about Pakistani positions.

Almost no damage was done to Jessore and its military
cantonment in the Indian sweep. Apparently, this was
because the major battle was fought north of the city,
at a place called Durgabati.

Maj. Gen. Dalbir Singh, commander of the Ninth Infantry
Division, whose troops took Jessore, said that the
Pakistanis put up "a very fanatic gallant fight" at
Durgabati, but that once his men had "punched a hole"
through the Pakistani defenses, the Pakistanis began
retreating rapidly and made no further stand in the
cantonment or the city.

The general, who briefed newsmen at his headquarters in
the cantonment, said that by yesterday at noon, he had
seized the entire area.

He said that one group of Pakistanis had retreated to a
place 15 miles down the road to Khulna but that another
group-about 300 men-had been cut off and engaged by his
troops after getting only about four miles out of
Jessore.

That battle was continuing today, General Singh's
briefing was punctuated by the steady thump of artillery
sending shells in that direction.

A drive and a walk toward the fighting found a column of
14 medium tanks, 40 armored personnel carriers (holding
400 to 500 men) waiting for orders to move on the
Pakistani force.

Several ambulances were also standing by.

Indian officials insist that their casualties are only
"light to moderate," but it seems clear-after visits to
the front-that while the Pakistanis may be suffering
sizable casualties, the Indian toll is considerably
higher than any official cares to admit.

Not far from the line of tanks and personnel carriers,
where one could hear machine-gun and mortar fire about
half a mile off, an army doctor told a colleague: "Get
everything ready. We've got 40 to 50 casualties coming."
One wounded Pakistani soldier was brought in from the
fight. He had been hit in the chest and left arm and had
lost a lot of blood .

As Indian troops carried him off on a stretcher, the
Moslem soldier groaned: "Allah, Allah, Allah."