606 বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ চতুর্দশ খন্ড At that time my forces occupied only 20 square miles of East Pakistan's 55,000 square miles. Mujib and his Indian backers had never though it possible for us to fan out of this 20 square miles and work our way through a complete control of the province with amazing speed. This we did although at that time our forces were outnumbered one to 18. The rebels had some 80,000 armed men; most of them were trained by ourselves and members of the East Bengal Regiment and the East Pakistan Rifles. The Indians had given them large quantities of arms. They murdered their West Pakistani officers along with their wives and children and spread a reign of terror in the country. I remember when I had to order the chaps into action, we had planned a cricket match that day and we had to cancel it. The boys knew they would be fighting against heavy odds, but they fought for Pakistan, and this gave them double strength. We smashed the rebels quickly and secured the borders preventing the Indians from bringing in their regular forces to seize a pan of East Pakistan and call it Bangladesh as they had planned. Our speed surprised the Indians and destroyed all their dreams, I cannot say the situation is completely back to normal but the army is in full control of the province. There is no fighting, although we are mopping out pockets of resistance. There are acts of sabotage, to be sure only the other day there were three bomb attacks in Dacca itself-one against a power plant. The jute convoy has also been attacked on several occasions and now we send the jute to Chittagong with an escort of soldiers. The lies published by the Indians make me laugh. On the second day of the disturbances they said I had been assassinated. The same day the American ConsulGeneral told me jokingly that the Indians had said he, too, had attended my funeral. Then they spread rum ours that the star was shining on my own head and that I was a power-hungry butcher. They also said we are massacring the Hindu minority as if we had nothing else to do. Our boys attacked a village near Dacca to round up some miscreants, and in the process two villagers were killed. The Indians said we had killed 2,000 Hindus. In fact only one of the two chaps killed was a Hindu. Now the Indians are training troops for the so-called Mukti Fouj (Liberation Army) of Mujib. There are training camps all along our borders. But they won't be able to harm us in any serious way unless they launch a full-scale attack by their army, That would be army fighting army and we shall meet the eventuality. (ii) Awami Leaguer M.S. M.S., who does not wish his identity to be known, was an active member of the banned Awami League. I had met him in Dacca last winter and he called on me again last week in Fast Pakistan. He had escaped to the countryside when the troubles broke out but has returned to Dacca under the general amnesty declared by President Yahya Khan. This is what he told me: The night of the 26th of March was a true Indonesian night in Dacca Everyone knew that the rupture had come and that there would be reprisals and counterreprisals. The army had lists of Awami League activists and naturally it stalled rounding them up under
