From East Pakistan came reports that the destruction was continuing. Estimates of the numbers of dead ranged to 200,000 or more. In the port city of Chittagong, hundreds of bodies were dumped into the river to be carried away by the tide. Some observers reported a virtual pogrom against East Pakistan's educated leadership, raising the specter of a region reduced to peasant serfdom. Even the modern jute mills, owned by West Pakistani businessmen, were reported destroyed.
Provisional Government
There was also savagery on the Bengali side. Rebels were reported to be paying off old scores against non-Bengali Moslems, who settled in East Pakistan after the 1947 partition of British India into India and Pakistan. At the town of Dinajpur, most male members of this group were killed and the women taken to make-shift internment camps. Despite the continued absence of their political leader, Sheikh Mujibur ("Mujib") Rahman, who is thought to be in prison in West Pakistan, the rebels announced the formation of a Bangladesh provisional Government last week. They named Mujib President. One of his colleagues. Tajuddin Ahmed, who is at large in East Pakistan, became prime Minister. As their provisional capital, the rebels prudently chose the town of Meherpur, which lies a mere four miles from the Indian border.
The Bangladesh forces are critically short of gasoline and diesel fuel and lack the field communication equipment necessary for organized military activity. They avoided any full-scale engagements in which they would undoubtedly sustain heavy losses. Some observers believe, in fact, that the long guerrilla phase of the civil war has already begun, with the army holding most of the towns and the rebels controlling much of the countryside. Despite the apparent determination of the Government to maintain its hold on East Bengal, the sheer human arithmetic of the situation seemed to indicate that the Bengalis would ultimately win freedom, or at least, some form of region autonomy. At the present time, the East Bengalis outnumber the West Pakistani soldiers in their midst by about 1,000 to 1.
