| শিরোনাম | সূত্র | তারিখ |
| ১৩৬। পূর্ব পাকিস্তানে হত্যালীলা | টাইমস | ৩ এপ্রিল, ১৯৭১ |
THE TIMES LONDON. APRIL 3, 1971
Editorial
THE SLAUGHTER IN EAST PAKISTAN
The more the news from East Pakistan accumulates, the more harrowing it becomes. Senseless murder hysterical cruelty and what must be a creeping fear run like a current throughout this packed mass of human beings. All this the distant observer may assume despite the protests of the Pakistan Government at some of the stories that have been given circulation.
They have a case-or had in the first days following the orders given to the Pakistan army to restore order. When authentic first-hand accounts are not to be had the temptation to report anything that comes from any hearsay source is rarely resisted. And when Western reports-news agencies, broadcasts, and newspapersbecome the source of information for so many parts of the world, the objections are all the stronger. Figures for those killed in the first days of shooting were often widely beyond anything one person could possibly have observed or calculated. In the period of negotiation between President Yahya Khan and Sheikh Mujib expectations of a united East Bengal, standing to arms had grown so strongly that they led to battle lines being drawn were none existed.
By now the picture is a little more clear and a great deal more gruesome. Enough first-hand reports from Dacca itself and from some of the major towns have come into confirm that what is happening is far worse than what might have been expected in a war of East Pakistan is resisting the forces of the Central Government to their demand for independence. The accounts piling up make conditions in East Bengal sound only too much like the massacres that broke out between Muslims and Hindus in the months leading up to the partition of India. Sparks from one fire set another going. Murder here demands vengeance there. And when the forces of order, military or police, are themselves the objects of one side or the other's hatred there are no boundaries to the hysteria of fear and murder. Yet in some ways the killing now in East Pakistan is worse, Hindus and Muslims had always been separate communities, brought up to regard each other as different. Outbreaks of violence between them were nothing new, Apart from Hindus who may have been caught up in the present slaughter there is no religious feeling to divide Punjabi from Bengali. There is unfortunately just enough difference for fear and hysteria to work on. Hence the ready and relished decapitations of any West Pakistanis who may find themselves innocently among the Bengalis. Vengeance is everywhere and no one can tell when he may be its victim,
How much of this must be blamed on the orders given to the Pakistan army in its task of restoring order? If not the orders themselves the manner in which they were carried out seems to have been well calculated to arouse fear and hatred on all sides.
