Pakistan. In addition to aid from the United Nations this assistance is in response to the appeal made by the UN Secretary General U Thant, for the displaced persons in East Pakistan. The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has been designated by the Secretary General to work as the focal point for coordination of assistance from the organizations of the UN family.
Routine Checks to Establish DP's Nationality
Meanwhile Pakistan Government started working out a proposal seeking India's cooperation to facilitate the return and rehabilitation of displaced persons in East Pakistan. The proposal envisaged a request to India to give facilities to Pakistani social workers to visit camps also the East Pakistan-West Bengal border to collect data regarding the number and particulars of persons wishing to return home, and prepare the ground for their rehabilitation. They would also be able to check upon mounting reports that India is forcibly preventing the return of Pakistani citizens to their homes. Their very presence in the camps, it was hoped, will reassure returning citizens.
The BBC. in a commentary broadcast on 18 June 1971 referred to this Pakistani proposal for settling the refugee problem by joint Indo Pakistan action" and said “At the beginning of June (1971), the Pakistan Government confirmed President Yahya's assurance that all genuine Pakistanis will be welcome home. It added that routine checks to establish nationality would be required. The latest plan goes further. Under it, Pakistan aid officials would enter refugee camps in India. They would collect data of those who want to return, draw up lists of bonafide citizens and prepare the ground at receiving centres in Pakistan in order to speedy rehabilitation. Such a plan, if offered, could embarrass the Indians seriously. It implies that many of the refugees may not be allowed to return. It will be difficult for India to accept such a proposal, since it would not seem to guarantee absolutely the position of the refugees once they return. But it is a plan which many countries might endorse". In view of India's prevailing attitude this proposal could not be pursued further.
Indian Brutalities Cited
The returning Pakistani citizens had their own stories of Indian brutalities to tell. At one of the Reception Centers in Jikargacha, near Jessore, over a dozen Pakistani nationals were interviewed by a correspondent of APP on 16 June 1971 and they corroborated what was already being reported in the foreign press on the basis of information trickling out of the refugee camps on the Indian side of the border. They narrated the tales of atrocities. intimidation coercion, looting, molestation and beating by volunteers and local inmates of the camps whenever anyone attempted to leave the camp to return to Pakistan.
Some of those returning victims of hoodlums, showed fresh marks of injuries persons while talking to the newsmen, and testified that around the-clock vigil was being kept on Pakistani nationals in refugee camps' in India to prevent them from returning to Pakistan.
Earlier, according to reports reaching Dacca on 6 June 1971, an Indian army patrol had apprehended 16 Pakistan nationals from the area opposite Comilla and seized all their belongings. The Pakistan nationals were returning to their homes in East Pakistan.
