পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (চতুর্দশ খণ্ড).pdf/১৮৭

বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ চতুর্দশ খন্ড শিরোনাম সূত্র তারিখ ৬৮। বাঙালীরা রুখে দাঁড়িয়েছে নিউজ উইক ১৯ জুলাই, ১৯৭১ NEWSWEEK. JULY 19, 1971 THE BENGALIS STRIKE BACK "I am glad to be able to tell you," declared Pakistan President Mohammad Yahya Khan in a recent address to his nation "that the army is in full control of the situation in East Pakistan. It has crushed the mischief-mongers, saboteurs and infiltrators." Alas for Yahya, the facts told a different story. Throughout East Pakistan, the embattled Bengali resistance movement seemed more determined than ever to prove, that it was alive and well-and capable of making life extremely difficult for the heavily armed but thinly spread occupation forces of the Pakistani Army. All across Pakistan's ravaged eastern province, revitalized rebel units made their presence felt last week in no uncertain terms. Taking advantage of a crash training program and of weapons, and ammunition supplied by India. Mukti Bahini (Liberation Army) went on the offensive. Factories were sabotaged. Key bridges were toppled by well-placed dynamic blasts. Vital barge traffic was attacked from concealed machine gun emplacements. And railroad locomotives operating on the relatively few remaining open routes were blown off the tracks by mines. Threat Though the heaviest attacks were concentrated near the Indian border, even the East Pakistani capital of Dacca, 90 miles away, came under rebel fire. Exchanges of gunshots and occasional explosions reverberated through the city's streets. And in one daring, late night attack earlier this month, Bengali insurgents knocked out the Dacca Power Plants main transformer, plunging the capital into total darkness for more than six hours. "It may be too early to view the Mukti Bahini as a serious military threat." said one Western diplomat in Dacca last week. "But there is no doubt that what" we are witnessing is the first stage of bloody, long lasting guerrilla warfare". Fuelling this mounting struggle was the Bengali rebels' outrage at the Pakistani Army's continued indiscriminate violence in dealing with their uprising. In retaliation, the rebels have escalated their guerrilla attacks to include random terrorism of their own. In a warning to the population, not to attend performances where a state tax is collected, a rebel grenade was tossed into the crowded Gulistan Cinema in Dacca, killing one person and injuring fourteen. Similarly, a small bomb exploded outside the suburban Dhanmondi residence of the U.S. Consul General in an apparent protest against American shipments of arms and supplies to Pakistan Government. "In the countryside" cabled Newsweek's Loren Jenkins, who toured the eastern region last week, "things have gone much further. In the Ganges Delta town of Khulna, two pro-army officials-Ghulam Sarwar Mullah and Abdul Hamid Khanrecently