April 9, 1971

The Martial Law Administrator Lieutenant General Tikka Khan was sworn in as governor of East Pakistan today. Earlier, after his appointment as both the governor and martial law administrator in East Pakistan on March 8, 1971, Tikka Khan could not find a judge to swear him in as Justice BA Siddiqui, chief justice of the East Pakistan High Court, refused to administer the oath for "reasons of ill health".

BANGALEES FLEE TOWNS

Bangalees were reported fleeing towns along the Padma river today, fearing an advance by Pakistan army units trying to crush the two week old autonomy movement in the East.

Women and children in the ferry port of Goalundo and other towns along the Padma were said to have started fleeing their homes as soon as word was received that government troops had occupied the town of Aricha, just across the river.

Bangladeshi resistance forces were said to hold most of the territory west of the Padma which divided East Pakistan in half. On the other side, the West Pakistani army was reported to control the main urban centres, including Dhaka, 40 miles east of the river. [Associated Press, April 9, 1971]

The Pakistan government said today that "anti-national elements" in Chittagong had been "destroyed" and that many of them had surrendered to Pakistani troops. The report about Chittagong was the first official acknowledgement that there had been strife in the city.

The report, given in Pakistani government newscasts, also said life was becoming normal in Chittagong and in Dhaka where arms were reportedly being returned to civilians who had surrendered them. [New York Times, April 10, 1971]

PAKISTAN SEEKS US AID TO AVERT BANKRUPTCY

Pakistan had dispatched a senior finance ministry official to Washington to seek emergency assistance from the international financial community to ward off the country's impending bankruptcy, according to the US and diplomatic sources.

This created a major dilemma for the World Bank and an international consortium of Pakistan's creditors, the largest of which is the United States. Pakistan's total international debt was about $4 billion, and the country was rapidly running out of reserves to pay the interest on those debts.

But officials representing Pakistan's creditors said their agencies did not want to open themselves up to the charge of financing the Pakistani central government's civil war against East Pakistan. In January, 1971, well before the current crisis, Pakistani government reserves were down to $184 million, compared to $342 million just a year before.

The monthly earnings from exports of West Pakistan, seat of the central government, were said to be only $28 million, while the western region's imports had been running $170 million monthly. The exports of the now embattled eastern region had traditionally made up much of the difference.

INDIA PROTESTS IN UN

India protested today against a denial by Pakistan that her government had failed to take action in the hijacking of an Indian airliner on February 1, 1971. A letter from Ambassador Samar Sen of India to the president of the UN Security Council asserted that despite a Pakistani government report on February 13, Pakistan had never in fact "deplored" the hijacking, had delayed the return of the passengers to Indian territory by 50 hours and had made no effort to disarm and arrest the hijackers before they burned the aircraft.

The letter said that India, in subsequently barring flights by Pakistani aircraft over Indian territory, had "acted in the interest of maintaining the minimum necessary standards or safety and security of international civil aviation against hijacking".

It may be mentioned here that the flight ban seriously thwarted Pakistan's supply line as Pakistan planes had to stop in Sri Lanka to refuel while on way to East Pakistan.

Shamsuddoza Sajen is a journalist and researcher. He can be contacted at sajen1986@gmail.com