পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (চতুর্দশ খণ্ড).pdf/৭২৪

এই পাতাটির মুদ্রণ সংশোধন করা প্রয়োজন।

বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ চতুর্দশ খন্ড শিরোনাম সূত্র তারিখ ২৬৪। রাজশাহী যুদ্ধের প্রত্যক্ষ বর্ণনা হিন্দুস্থান ষ্টান্ডার্ড ১২ এপ্রিল, ১৯৭১ THE HINDUSTAN STANDARD, APRIL 12, 1971 EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF RAJSHAHIBATTLE By Robert Kaylor Rajshahi. April. 1 1. From indications that reach the outside world, the struggle for survival going on here is a good example of the battles being waged elsc-where throughout East Pakistan. In the city, once a busy trading centre of 100,000 persons about 190 miles northwest of Dacca are the "Liberation Forces" of Bangladesh. They are strong on determination to free their homeland, but weak on organization, weapons, communications and just about everything else that it takes to fight a war. Held up in a military base on the northern edge of the city is the remaining part of the garrison of the armed forces of West Pakistan. They are part of an organized fighting machine with modern weapons and air support. Now, however, they are surrounded by a hostile population and cut off from supplies. Fighting broke out here as it did almost everywhere else in East Pakistan on March 25 and 26 when the Army moved to seize control from the supporters of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Awami League. Since that time, no one knows for certain how many persons have died. Leaders of the Liberation Forces in Rajshahi believe that between 3,000 and 4,000 East Pakistanis have been killed. Most of the deaths have been in sumwnding villages where troops from the garrison made raids and where air strikes have been flown. On the other side, liberation leaders say that somewhere around 200 soldiers from West Pakistan have been killed, many of them overwhelmed by sheer numbers of villagers who had no weapons except clubs, bricks and stones. "They were defenseless peoples but they were very much tortured and they jumped upon the soldiers without concern for their lives and killed them", said Tasaddaque Hossain, a local Awami League leader. Liberation Forces took over Rajshahi last Wednesday, apparently when troops who remained in the city pulled out to consolidate their position with soldiers at the cantonment one mile north of the city. It is a ghost city, with its shops shuttered and padlocked. Virtually all of the population has gone, most of them to outlying villages and about 10,000 to seek refuge across the nearby border with India.