Pakistan Army ‘in complete control’

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32567, 29 March 1971, Page 1

Pakistan Army ‘in complete control’

fN.Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright) NEW DELHI, March 28. Radio Pakistan said today that the Army was in complete control of the situation in East Pakistan and that life was fast returning to normal. It quoted an official announcement saying that the Government and other workers were back at their posts. Normal programmes had been resumed on radio and television.

The radio—monitored in New Delhi—said that, a clandestine radio had been set up on a ship in the Hooghly River, near Calcutta.

The radio was calling itself the voice of Bangla Desh. (This is the name heard on secret radio broadcasts said to come from supporters of the East Pakistan leader, Mujibur Rahman.) Pakistan Radio, in its early morning English language bulletin, repeated denials that the martial law administrator, Lieutenant-General Tikka Khan, had been injured in Dacca yesterday. Clandestine radio messages said he was shot dead.

The radio also described reports that Sheik Mujiburis Awami League supporters were in control of Chittagong, Comilla and Jessore, as completely baseless.

Other reports In spite of Radio Pakistan's report of life returning to normal, other broadcasts heard said violent conflict seemed to be raging across large areas of East Pakistan today after President Yahya Khan’s orders to his troops to crush the self-proclaimed Independent People’s Republic of Bangla Desh (the Bengal nation). Dacca Radia today claimed that Sheikh Mujjbur had been arrested, but clandestine radio broadcasts said he had gone underground to dodge arrest In broadcasts Attributed to the breakaway leader, he assured the East Pakistan people that he was free and in command of the ‘liberation movement.” Speaking in English over

"the Voice of Bangla Desh,” the Sheikh asked the Government troops to surrender. “Otherwise we will avenge the blood of the Bengalis you have killed,” he warned. Sheikh Mujibur said he expected the wholesale capture , of West Pakistani troops in East Pakistan within two days. Effigy burnt In Calcutta today an effigy of . President Yahya was burned by demonstrators in front of the Pakistan Deputy High Commissioner’s office. In Bombay 4000 demonstrators mobbed the Pakistan Deputy High Commissioner’s office demanding the withdrawal of troops from East Pakistan. The Indian Prime Minister (Mrs Indira Gandhi) said troop movements in East Pakistan were not "merely suppression of a movement, but the meeting of unarmed people with tames.” Reporters expelled A group of foreign correspondents was expelled from East Pakistan after the outbreak of civil war and arrived in Bombay by plane from Karachi, West Pakistan, United Press International reported. The 35 correspondents, representing American, Australian, British, Canadian, French, Japanese and Russian new? agencies,; nujio- and television network, were expelled lastnightfrem Dacca. A U.T.I. correspondent, Robert Kaylor, who was among them, said the correspondents were in a Dacca hotel where Pakistani Army trnnnc had them to

’ remain under penalty of be- • ing shot. • Kaylor said an army geni eral visited the hotel last night and told them trans- - port was waiting to take 8 them to the airport where a ’ plane was waiting to fly them > to Karachi, West Pakistan. They arrived ini Karachi at noon, then flew on individually to Bombay. » Baggage searched ' At the airport in Dacca, the correspondents were subjec- . ted to a baggage search by i Army and Air Force officers. ; Movie' film and still films . were confiscated. t -When they reached Karachi the correspondents were orr dered to go through another I intensive check at the airport tin which notebooks, news r copy.carbbhs of cables wired , from Dacca, and background I flies as well as unexposed film, were confiscated.