53 ংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ ত্রয়োদশ খন্ড felt that the Muslims fleeing across were given better conditions than they themselves enjoyed. This is one of the dangerous aspects of the situation, that with the refugees coming over and constituting half the total population in a particular district, other interested infiltrators, perhaps in the pay of the West Pakistan Administration, will try to whip up communal disorder on the Indian side in order to try to divert attention from the situation in East Bengal. I was appalled by the stories that I heard. I do not want to go over the stories which were reported in the Press-we have read them—but I must tell the House that the stories that I heard at first hand from refugees to whom I spoke were really horrifying. I spoke to a group of young wives holding their children. They were weeping as their stories unfolded. They told how their husbands, peaceful farmers, not leaders of the Awami League by any means-supporters, perhaps-had been taken out of their homes by the West Pakistani troops when the villages in which they lived were entered by the army platoons, made to sit on the road outside and then shot in cold blood. The refugees themselves had seen the West Pakistan Army killing peasants in the fields indiscriminately. They told of the atrocities committed by Biharis against Bengalis, the Biharis behaving with complete abandon because they were protected by the army. I do not dispute that there were also atrocities on the other side, and they are to be regretted equally. There have been atrocities against Biharis by Bengalis. But all this has come about because the West Pakistan Government have failed to maintain the movement towards the expressions of the democratic will in the elections last year. It is clear to me, having been to the camps that those thousands of people would not flee from their own homes to India, which is not exactly a place to which Muslims would wish to flee, having been subjected over the years to propaganda against Hindu, or allegedly Hindu, India, unless they felt that their hopes and aspirations in East Bengal had been obliterated by the actions of the West Pakistan forces. Not only to me but to other observers who have been there, people have described in graphic detail some of the lawful events of the past few weeks. Plainly, there has been a massacre of extraordinary proportions. It is inconceivable that this vast number of people would have fled across the border unless a massacre had been taking place. Those who wish to find a solution to this problem must condemn the brutalities and excesses of those who have held military power. It is not good enough to gloss over the situation by saying that there has been atrocity on the other side as well. I agree that there probably has, but we must recognize that the major atrocity has been committed by the military power which the West Pakistanis brought into the territory secretly over weeks during the period when the negotiations were in progress. The situation becomes even more frightening when one considers the danger of famine in East Bengal in the months ahead. At present, in many areas, there is a shortage of food because of bad distribution and lack of communications. The roads and railways have been cut. There is no doubt about that. The report in the Financial Times two days ago by Mr. Harvey Stock win has confirmed it. But the danger of starvation within the next few weeks, with which, of course, we must concern ourselves, pales into insignificance against the threat of
