Then stumbling along a dried-up river bed thick with longs torn out of the mountains by the surge of monsoon cataracts, and finally through a stretch of reeds and coarse grasses I came to an almost deserted settlement in a jungle clearing.
There I made first contact in this region with the Mukti Fouz. Quite unlike their counterpart in the west of Bangladesh along the West of Bengal border of India, these men were already battle-hardened'.
Danger ahead
No one in Bangladesh gives his real name, and I am not reporting most place names, to avoid reprisals, The local commander, who called himself Capt. Dudu Mia, said it was dangerous to go further that day. He confirmed what I had seen from the heights of Assam earlier. There, looking down on to the Sylhet Plain, I saw fires burning across a wide landscape and a layer of smoke settled below the cloud.
Capt. Mia said heavy fighting was going on in Sylhet. The area was under constant three-inch mortar and six-inch artillery attack, as well as aerial bombardment from Chinese MIGs and American Sabre jets of the West Pakistan Air Force.
In addition West Pakistan soldiers were making repeated forays from Salutigur Airport, burning villages and tea plantations.
Travel during darkness would be suicide, so I slept in the settlement, a typical “Punji" village consisting of “chang,” houses simple thatched dwellings on raised bamboo platforms.
The night was deathly silent, broken only by the baying of piedogs and the buzzing of the local, steely-jawed mosquitoes.
In the morning, I drove with an armed escort towards Sylhet. The communications of the Bangladesh forces are tenuous, and there was no knowing what we might meet.
After the bamboo stockade surrounding the village, my jeep passed through thick woods to British owned tea estates. They were largely deserted, the lush green bushes untended and unpicked.
Plantation workers, looking cowed and bewildered, gazed vacantly from their homes. While the spirits of the “liberation fighters" are high despite heavy losses, the morale of the peasants seemed at low ebb.
Their situation is appalling. They have no food other than one pound of rice daily. Not much rice can be harvested in the present circumstances.
Stocks cannot last more than two weeks. The Army has burnt and looted many ware houses. There is no money to buy vital supplies such as salt and kerosene, even if these can be obtained from across the border, which is difficult.
