Washington Star/Evening Star

DACCA, EAST PAKISTAN.-A good guess, the experts say, is that 200,000 persons were killed in the political upheaval in East Pakistan that began March 1.

Seventy-five percent of the dead are Bengalis, one foreign diplomat estimated. The balance of casualties is divided among the Bihari Moslem, the Pakistani Hindu, and the West Pakistani peoples.

For 24 days in March the Bengalis of East Pakistan felt the fever of independence and exulted in a growing sense or Bengali nationalism.

Since March 25, however, the army or West Pakistan has marched through the East, crushing the rebellion.

DACCA A GHOST TOWN

Today the Pakistan army-strength estimated at between 70,000 and 100,000 in the East-has secured all the cities and communication routes.

Army clearing operations and the panic they deliberately inspired dislocated millions of citizens. The city of Dacca is today described by longtime residents as a virtual ghost town-with between 25 to 50 percent of its population of 1.5 million gone.

Massive collections of slum shanties around city bazaars and railroad tracks have been burned out or leveled by bulldozers. Almost no trace remains of them, and no trace at all of the hundreds of thousands of poor who once lived in them.

When the army struck to restore national control, thousands died in Dacca. Foreign diplomats put the Dacca death toll at around 3,000 in the March 25 27 period.

In the Dacca of today you take your pick of death toll figures: In one day a reporter was told the Dacca death toll was 150 by army count; an American businessman said he believed it was 500; the diplomat guessed 3,000; a British businessman ventured that it might be B,000; and an anonymous Bengali telephoned to say, "Sir, you must tell the world that the army killed 36,000 people in the streets of Dacca."

However many died in Dacca in late March, the deaths touched off a spate of massacres of non-Bengali men, women and children all across East Pakistan. In turn, that enraged further the Pakistani troops assigned to retake the countryside.

Throughout an official government sponsored tour that lasted six days, a group of nine visiting foreign journalists was told over and over that the real story in East Pakistan was not what had happened, but that normalcy was returning.

An official announcement was published that public schools had reopened in Dacca. So they had. One school with a previous enrollment of about 800 children now has but 20 or 30 children a day. Another school with an enrollment of 750 had about 90 of its pupils return to classes-the majority non-Bengali children, diplomatic sources reported.

An overriding fear seems to grip Dacca today. Although the official dally curfew does not go into effect until midnight, the streets of the capital begin emptying at sundown. By 10 P.M. no one is to be seen afoot or driving.

TRAFFIC IS LIGHT

An American businessman pointed out that although in daytime there appears to be considerable traffic on Dacca's streets, where once it took you half an hour to drive from the airport to the Dacca Intercontinental Hotel, that same journey today takes less than 10 minutes.

The touring journalists made a 60 mile drive along the excellent highway from Thakurgaon to Rangpur in the Northwest without meeting even one vehicle.

Businessmen say the government and the army have thus far put the bulk of their efforts into two projects of restoration since regaining control: resumption of Jute and tea production for exports, and removing the physical scars of the fighting.

"The government intends to get the cash export business right back into operation as quickly as possible, clean out every last Hindu in East Pakistan, and then settle down to a nice long occupation," one embittered foreigner said.

It is the cleaning out of the country's Hindu population of 10 million that could ultimately bring Pakistan and India into conflict. One diplomat estimated that perhaps 2 million Hindus already have fled into India. The Indian government estimates 4.5 million refugees have arrived.

"The army is seeing that intense pressure is kept on those remaining to go the same way," he said. "We have had reports from a number of places that Bengalis are beginning to attack Hindus while the army stands by doing nothing"

Some foreign sources said there are signs that a resistance movement against the army and the government was beginning to build again among Bengalis.

In recent weeks the 30 to 40 percent of Bengalis who have resumed work in commercial and administrative sectors have begun receiving letters, written on East Pakistan provincial government stationery and posted under government frank, letting them know there is an underground. The letters warn against collaboration with the government or over-enthusiastic work habits One Bengali commented, "The army is making the fat they'll be fried in some day. The liberation army will come some day. Perhaps many of us won't be here to welcome them. But they'll come."