178 বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র : সপ্তম খণ্ড that India and Pakistan should work out ways and means to reduce tension and allow normalcy to return at the earliest". Certainly it was not in a spirit of responsibility that Ambassador Sen ridiculed the report quoted by us of nearly a thousand shells fired by Indian artillery on border villages of East Pakistan during the night of 29th September. After himself changing "nearly" to "exactly", he put the question, who counted them? But Indian Representative do not pause to put the same question to themselves when they make wild allegations that a million people were killed in East Pakistan. Ambassador Sen quoted a frivolous remark of the Manchester Guardian, but let me remind him that the same newspaper in its issue of 19th July published a report from its correspondent, Martin Woolacott, to the effect that in regard to: "the awful arithmetic of the killing in East Bengal, it can be taken as obvious that in every category there has been an exaggeration". Woolacott's careful estimate was that about 20,000 people were killed by the secessionist elements and about 30,000 casualties resulted, following the army action on 25th March. To quote him: "The military action itself no doubt killed far fewer than the propagandists from the other side claimed". In his statement of 5th October, the Chairman of my Delegation alluded to his coming from East Pakistan because he was citing his direct acquaintance with the minds of the people of the eastern wing of our country. I regret that Ambassador Sen should have thought it fit to allude to his own origin also. Surely, as a Representative of India, he cannot by virtue of his birth alone claim direct acquaintance with conditions in any part of Pakistan. Finally, the Representative of India tried to make light of the issued between India and Pakistan which have prevented the establishment of normal and good neighborly relations between us. He would not like to hear about the problem of Jammu and Kashmir which is problem involving millions of human beings. He said that India is always willing to co-operate with Pakistan in solving all bilateral problems. In the first place, the problem of Jammu and Kashmir is not entirely bilateral; the United Nations is also a party to it. Secondly, even if we disregard that consideration for moment, it is not most extraordinary than India should express its willingness to negotiate a settlement of this problem and, in the next breath, assert that the only thing to negotiate is the withdrawal by Pakistan from azad Kashmir. In other words, they invite us to make a gift to them of even that part of Kashmir which escaped Indian occupation. To say that we raise these issues in order to divert attention from the problem created by the situation in East Pakistan, is wholly contrary to facts. The latter problem arose only this year and we fervently hope it will be solved soon. The problem of Jammu and Kashmir has been in the forefront of India-Pakistan relations since 1948.
