| শিরোনাম | সূত্র | তারিখ |
| ১৪১। ক্ষমতার সীমানা | টাইমস | ১০ এপ্রিল, ১৯৭১ |
THE TIMES, LONDON, APRIL 10, 1971
THE LIMITS OF TOWER
Peter Hazelhurst
Jessore City, 9 April-This is a war that no one can win. On my left is an Army division, holed up in their barracks and surrounded by 2,000 nondescript freedom fighters and about 500 members of the East Pakistan Rifles.
As another shell is fired from the Army cantonment about half a mile away and another house crumbles.
A Bengali volunteer Fires off a round from his Second World War bolt action rifle, The freedom fighters are also equipped with light machineguns and captured IMOrtarS.
There has been heavy exchange of fire this morning, but both sides are attempting to conserve ammunition and the firing is now sporadic.
The Bengalis are worried. They know Jessore is a strategic garrison near the Indian border and that the West Pakistan Army is well equipped and well manned.
But although well equipped and well manned, the West Pakistanis are aware that they are surrounded by 75 million Bengalis and that if they attack, they will have to move in one direction and in force, for small groups of troops have been overwhelmed and hacked to death by angry mobs during the past week.
The liberation front's ammunition is, however, running low and the worried freedom fighters believe that the Army will make a three-pronged attack when reinforcements are flown into Jessore airport which is under the control of the Army.
But what can the Army hope to achieve? And even if President Yahya Khan can pacify the biggest urban centers, how does he expect to rule the country.
After an extensive tour of the western regions of the province, I discovered that at best. West Pakistan can hope only to rule the eastern province as an extension of Burma in which the Government's writ will not extend beyond the capital.
Apart from cantonments, there is not an Army man to be seen for hundreds of miles. Bengali nationalism has united every Bengali from the policeman to the civil servant and the border security staff.
With nearly 19,000 troops committed to fight the rebellion and the rebellion divisions committed to the borders of West Pakistan, one cannot see how or where the President will find the people to run the country.
The entire police for has joined the liberation front, the border security force have opened up the frontiers to Indian infiltration and civil servants and district magistrates are
