From 50 Years Ago: No Early End

No Early End

The picture of the military and political situation in East Bengal is murky, to say the least. The rigorous censorship enforced by the Pakistan Government has choked off all independent reporting and news emanating from Indian sources is only slightly less unreliable than that put out by the West Pakistani Press or radio. Two general impressions, however, stand out. First, the Pakistani army appears to have established control over most of the larger cities, including Dacca and Chittagong. Admittedly, this has been done at a tragic cost; also, even in these places not all pockets of resistance have been snuffed out. Second, it does not seem that the East Bengali resistance fighters have been following any definite plan of action under the guidance of a central leadership. The army has been harassed, at places severely, by spontaneous local actions, but the nature of such actions seems to confirm that the army had managed to arrest a large number of the Awami League’s top leaders, including Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in its first swoop.