বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ চতুর্দশ খন্ড Bongaon, about 52 miles from Calcutta, is the frontier city which has become the point of entry for refugees. I spent two hours to reach there and another two hours to contact the misery of a horrible magnitude. The car in which I was travelling was running on a rough but a good road. On both sides of embankment there were immense plantations of rice and jute. This is the season of monsoon, a terrible rainy season, cool and persistent which is common in India. Everywhere along the road there was stagnant water and refugees shivering with cold and disabled bodies of sick and hungry persons. They were taking shelter in feeble huts of bamboo and jute and the monsoon was continuously falling aggravating their miseries. These were the refugees who had not yet been taken in charge by the Government as they had just crossed the frontier with their handy baggage on their heads after walking for many days and leaving everything behind. Entry into the Indian territory was a hope for them. The first relief which they receive is the medical assistance. At the post they are given all vaccinations-plague, cholera; and small-pox etc. An official told me that at this stage the Government came to know about the precise number of refugees entering India. They were keeping the record in the medical files. While I was speaking with him a stretcher was brought by two relief workers on which a woman of 20 years was lying still with her eyes without life. Beside her a child of skeleton structure was lying. It was obvious that the mother of this child was certainly dying. Nothing was less sure.
