| শিরোনাম | সূত্র | তারিখ |
| ১৪৩। হাজারো সন্ত্রস্ত মানুষ এখনো ঢাকা থেকে পালাচ্ছে | টাইমস | ১৩ এপ্রিল, ১৯৭১ |
THE TIMES, LONDON, APRIL 13, 1971
THOUSANDS STILL FLEEING FRIGHTENED DACCA
From Dennis Neeld
Dacca, April il. A forest of green and white Pakistani national flags flutters today over this cowed and submissive city. The flags of Bangladesh, the independent stale 75 million Bengalis aspired to set up in the eastern wing of Pakistan, have been hauled down or burned. To display one now would risk summary execution.
President Yahya Khan stroops patrol the city in jeeps and commandeered trucks, their rifles and sub-machine guns at the ready. In the teeming working class districts they roam through a black wilderness of ashes and charred bamboo stumps. The huts burnt like matchwood when the army stormed in to crush the secessionist movement of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, leader of the Awami League, on the night of March 25.
Diplomats in Dacca estimate that up to 6,000 people were killed in a wellprepared assault.
The crack of rifle shots still punctuates the night as troops round up Awami League officials, intellectuals and other prominent Bengalis, “This is Gestapo rule", one western diplomat commented. “The army has committed mass murder."
While the army turns a blind eye, looting by non-Bengalis from West Pakistan is commonplace. Thousands of families are still fleeing the city to return to their native villages.
Dacca University remains closed. Student dormitories are strewn with the litter of violence and pocked with bullet holes. Neutral observers estimate that between 300 and 500 students were shot and killed when they attempted to resist the army's takeover of the city.
Eyewitnesses claim that many were lined up against a wall and mown down by machine guns. At least eight prominent faculty professors were shot and killed. The East Pakistan police have been disarmed, as have survivors of the East Bengal Regiment and the East Pakistan Rifles who led the resistance. Many are held prisoner.
Dacca is clamped under a 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew. To avoid the attention of foraging troops and gangs of non-Bengali looters, many families sit at home at night with their house lights extinguished.
Most senior civil servants are back at their desks although many of their employees have stayed away from work. Shops have reopened and essential services are functioning almost normally.
