REFUGEES AGAIN POUR INTO INDIA

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32636, 18 June 1971, Page 9

REFUGEES AGAIN POUR INTO INDIA

Fresh outbreak of cholera reported (N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) CALCUTTA, June 17. Cholera has broken out in. a new area of West Bengal, a new wave of about 20,000 refugees having poured across the border from East Pakistan since the week-end.

The West Bengal Minister of Health (Dr Jainul Abedin) says that cholera is raging in the district around Burdwan, an industrial town 55 miles north-west of Calcutta.

The huge new influx of refugees is thought to have begun because reports were filtering through to the East Pakistanis that the Indian authorities had managed to arrest the cholera epidemic that had killed at least 5000 people.

The flood of refugees had been halted for about 12 days, before which about 100,000 people were crossing into India every day.

India’s Deputy Foreign Minister (Mr Surendra Pal Singh) told Parliament in New Delhi yesterday that it was planned to send six Ministers to various parts of the world to emphasise the need for more aid for the nearly six million refugees from East Pakistan already in India.

This would be in addition to the present world tour of the most important capitals by the Foreign Minister (Mr Saran Singh)—who yesterday met President Nixon and the Secretary of State (Mr William Rogers) in Washington, and the United Nations SecretaryGeneral (U Thant) in New York.

‘Without precedent’

U Thant, who said today that the dimensions of the refugee problem were without precedent in history, has cancelled the plans for his yisit to the Organisation of African Unity summit meeting in Addis Ababa, next week to devote his full attention to the relief work. He issued a world-wide appeal for contributions in cash and kind for “this challenging humanitarian effort” U Thant wishes to remain in constant touch with Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, who is serving as the focal point of the international relief in India. Indian Government sources say that Prince Sadruddin proposes some kind of United Nations presence in the East Pakistan capital, Dacca, to help refugees who might

return. The sources add, however, that he has made it clear that the martial law authorities in Pakistan have the final word on this.

“As long as East Pakistan is under military rule, it may be difficult to say how far the United Nations could go in bringing about a climate in which the refugees could return,” he is quoted as telling the Indian Minister of State for Rehabilitation (Mr R. K. Khadilkar).

‘Life hellish’

In Karachi, the Associated Press of Pakistan reports that returning refugees have described life in the Indian refugee camps as “hellish.” Some refugees, the agency says, have reported that they were mistreated and received starvation rations.

The agency’s correspondent in Meherpur, 100 miles west of Dacca, reports that the flow of returning refugees has increased since President Yahya offered a general amnesty several weeks ago. One refugee is quoted by the agency as saying: “We were given a few morsels of porridge and barely enough milk and baby food, although international relief organisations had provided adequate supplies. “Whatever money and belongings I could carry into India were looted by Hindu volunteers. I and my family had to live on starvation rations.

“The Indian camp workers prohibited the Moslem Bengalis from praying. Indian relief volunteers and other Hindu inmates of the camp would mock us and say that we could not offer prayers, since our God was not in India but in Pakistan, and we had left Him behind.” Shelling reported The Press Trust of India reports that Pakistani troops heavily shelled an Indian border security force outpost about 50 miles north of the West Bengal town of Krishangar yesterday. The Indian border forces returned the fire, but it was not known if there were any casualties.

In the Upper House of Parliament, the Indian Minister of Defence (Mr Jagjivan Ram) said that India’s defence system was sufficiently developed to take care of any threat from any quarter.

Asked by a member if his reference also included China, Mr Ram said: “Certainly. The country’s defence is in a much better condition than it was in 1962.” (India fought a border war with China in that year.) Mr Balgovind Verma, the Deputy Minister of Labour and Rehabilatition, told the House that it was planned to disperse 2J million of the refugees to 50 huge camps, each housing 50,000 people. Twenty such camps would be in the western part of West Bengal, away from its eastern frontier with East Pakistan, 10 in the interior of Tripura; nine in the Central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh; five in the eastern state of Bihar; two in Assam; two in Meghalaya, and two in the eastern seaboard state of Orissa.