Menu
Menu
| July 3, 1972 NBC News Broadcast Allan Hart of BBC reporting from Mohammadpur Camp: “Most of them live in regufee camps. Conditions in this one in Mohammedpur near Dacca are so appalling that a senior UN official recently described it as a concentration camp. In simple terms, the Biharis are now paying the price for backing the wrong side of the war. “ “Many of the Biharis now living in the squalor of these camps are what could be regarded as middle class. Many lost their homes. Most have lost their jobs. Their only worldly possessions are what they brought with them.” |
| February 9, 1972 NBC News Report Liz Trotta reporting from Maurapara: “The young men were interrogated and many were sent to prison or killed for collaboration with the Pakistan Army. The Bangladesh Government claims that the Biharis were helping Pakistani soldiers who have been hiding in Mirpur since the war ended.” “The memory of Pakistani Army atrocities is still fresh in the minds of Bengalis and so what is happening to the Biharis is in many ways a kind of vengeance – a vengeance that the Mukti Bahini and the Bangladesh Government are trying desperately to conceal.” |
| February 8, 1972 NBC News Report Liz Trotta reporting from Adamjee Nagar: “The Biharis are a sect that sided with Pakistan in the war against India. They have paid a heavy price for that allegiance.” “These Biharis have been here since early December. There is not only fear among these people – there is hunger. The Red Cross has sent some wheat and rice for the starving Biharis here, but its barely enough to last them for a few days. “ “Malnutrition has claimed countless lives here. Many Biharis have sold most of their clothes and belongings to buy food from the local markets. The Biharis in Bangladesh have no hope and no place to go. “ “As far as the Biharis are concerned, as long as they remain in Bangladesh, their lives will be in grave danger.” |
| December 31, 1971 CBS News Report: “At a news conference today, Indian Prime Minister Indra Gandhi said that she was aware that there have been some savage reprisals in the new country of Bangladesh. While not condoning murder, Mrs. Gandhi said that taken in perspective its quite remarkable that no more have been killed. “ Michael O’Sullivan reporting from Narayanganj: “Several thousand people are holed up in these jute mills in a virtual state of seige. They are Biharis – members of a minority group.” “The logical solution will be for the Biharis to migrate to West Pakistan but so far the Pakistan Government has shown no interest to accept them, so they are left afraid of disease and hunger. These people are now almost totally cut off from the outside world with little food and no medical facilities. In these over crowded conditions, cholera could decimate this community” |
| December 31, 1971 NBC News Report Ron Nessen reporting from Dacca: “The young undisciplined Mukti Bahini picked up people at their homes or shops, took them to secret hide-aways and some of the people were not heard from again.” “When the Pakistanis were in power, they arrested, terrorized and killed Bengalis without trial. The Bengalis called it genocide. Now the Bengalis are in power and they are using exactly the same methods and they call it justice.” |
| December 30, 1971 NBC News Report Ron Nessen reporting from Mirpur: “In these buildings, live as many as 300,000 people called Biharis who are different in appearance, language, and ancestry from the Bengalis of Bangladesh. Nearly two weeks after the war ended, the Biharis are still afraid to venture outside Mirpur.” There was some food in Mirpur but the Biharis said there was not much and it would soon be gone. They said, they were down to one meal a day. They said, there was no milk for the children. “ “The Red Cross said, the Bangladesh Government would not allow it to take relief supplies into Mirpur.” |
| December 21, 1971 NBC News Report: “In Bangladesh, once East Pakistan, not a day has gone by without horrible reprisals against people who supported the Pakistani Government. There have been individual killings and there have been massacres. And here is a film of a rally in Dacca made last Friday at which men were incited to kill — and did kill.” “Here are pictures taken by two Associated Press men, of the death of one prisoner in Dacca. First he was tortured. Then he was bayoneted — again he was bayoneted — and finally he was killed — and a child, a relative of one of the prisoners, was kicked and stamped to death.” |
December 21, 1971
CBS News Broadcast
British Correspondent Richard Lindley reporting from Dacca for ITN:
“In the aftermath of the war, there have been repeated reports of Bengalis trying to take revenge on Pakistanis and those who supported them. Such an incident took place in Dacca on Sunday – the execution of four men said to be local militia-men who collaborated with the Pakistanis.”
“General Siddiqi who had earlier urged restraint on the crowd and promised the prisoners a fair trial himself took a rifle and helped bayonet them to death – firing a bullet to finish off one man.”
| December 15, 1971 NBC News Broadcast British Correspondent Richard Lindley reporting from Khulna: “This man, as the corpal told us, was suspected of being a Razakar, one of those who sided with the Pakistani troops in fighting the Mukti Bahini. This man’s treatment was mild compared to the rough handling these suspected Razakars had to endure. To excuse their behavior, Indian troops said that these men were arrested while still armed though we saw no weapons. Bengalis have suffered a great deal under the West Pakistani occupation in the past eight months. With the help of their Indian troops they clearly indent to get their own back.” |
@2024 Stranded Pakistani. All rights reserved.