৫৫২ বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র : অষ্টম খন্ড everything. Some were too tired to speak; occasionally, I saw one or two people craning out their necks from a speeding truck and vomiting. Camps were being set up in different areas, but the authorities found it difficult to cope with the rush till the first week of May. Some of them said the population of Tripura was about to double. Most refugees belonged to the poor peasantry but here were middle class and some rich families as well. Most of them came to Agartala town from where some proceeded to Calcutta while others put up with relatives and acquaintances. There were affluent lawyers and doctors and engineers who had trekked for days on end along devious routes to dodge the marrauding West Pakistani soldiers. A lawyer left behind his two houses and tree cars and entered Agartala with his wife and son. A field actress, who had been signed for more than 3 dozen films, walked through rain and mud for 48 hours and came to Agartala. An architect came from Dacca with his wife and child, expecting to get killed any moment on the way. No every one of them was, depressed. It was an inspiring experience for me to meet a group of teachers and writers from Bangladesh at the Polytechnic Institute at Agartala. Some of them were from Chittagong University where they had helped Mukti Fauj fighters and seen action. Each family was cooped up within a single room of the institute, where the food was cooked and all members slept. Evidently, they were used to good living in Bangladesh, but this catastrophe did not appear to affect their spirits much.
