Boston Globe

NEW DELHI. - The Indian government said yesterday that malnutrition, as well as cholera, is taking a heavy toll of lives among 4.7 million East Pakistani refugees in eastern India.

Health Minister Uma Shanker Dixit told parliament that most of the refugees were "arriving in a condition of exhaustion caused by malnutrition."

He said it appeared the refugees had brought the cholera with them.

Dixit said he could not give a detailed statement of deaths attributed to all causes, but said 1250 persons had died of cholera as of Friday and there were 9500 confirmed cases of the disease.

Dixit figures contradicted a statement Saturday by his ministry, saying 2000 persons had succumbed to cholera as of last Thursday.

Health officials in the affected areas around Calcutta have said the death toll has reached at least 4000. Unofficial sources in touch with the refugee camps claim 10,000 have died from the disease.

Dixit rejected suggestions that Pakistan had unleashed germ warfare and was purposely polluting rivers and wells near the border areas to spread cholera.

But in the upper house of parliament, Dixit deputy, D. P. Chattopadhyaya, said Pakistani authorities were throwing bodies of victims into rivers near the border, bringing symptoms of the disease to "our side."

He said about half the refugees had been inoculated, but he added there was a shortage of saline water. Normally, a cholera victim must receive 25 quarts over a three-day period to escape death.

Britain yesterday began organizing a massive airlift of medicine and food supplies. A foreign office spokesman said Royal Air Force planes were leaving with free supplies of cholera vaccine, syringes and saline solutions.