the point of supply of arms and ammunition to the Bangladesh."
These funds were raised to purchase arms for the 'liberation forces' of Mujib and to send armed infiltrators into East Pakistan. A number of Indian newspapers including the Statesman reported that the Indian Prime Minister, when asked whether there was any machinery to carry these supplies to East Pakistan, said on 5 April that “She could not say anything about it publicly as it was a very serious matter. However, she supported the drive for raising funds". The same day, the Chief Secretary of Tripura was reported to have told the press that “11 entry points and 9 camps on the borders" had been opened for receiving “refugees" from East Pakistan.
In many cases these camps have served as cover to organise infiltration of personnel and smuggling of arms into East Pakistan. This has been testified to by a number of foreign correspondents based in India.
Foreign Correspondents' Testimony
The flow of Indian arms to rebel elements in East Pakistan has also been reported extensively by several foreign reporters. Columbia Broadcasting Service correspondent, Earnest Weather all, reported from New Delhi on March 31: “All indications are that Mujib and his outlawed Awami League had carefully advance-planned military campaign. The first target of this 'liberation' army was to be Chittagong, East Pakistan's only deep water port. Once the port was destroyed, President (Yahya Khan) would have difficulty in supplying his troops in East Pakistan. The next stage was the capture of Dacca and to prevent its use as the main base for Pakistan Army operations. It is believed that Mujib received supplies from outside sources for long period and these were hidden till the crunch came from Yahya (on March 26, 1971). Many Western diplomats in New Delhi feel these weapons could only have come from India".
It was against such armed insurgents infiltrators that the Pakistan Army had moved, and not against what the Indian Press and Radio wants the world to believe as being “innocent unarmed civilians".
3 April 1971, Donald Seaman, correspondent of the Daily Express London, reported from Calcutta that “flow of arms goes on in secret". The Times and the Guardian made similar revelations. Reporting from the 24-Parganas district of West Bengal, the London Times correspondent, Peter Hazelhurst, reported in a frontpage despatch that bombs and guns “poured across the frontier" into East Pakistan and West Bengal guerillas were in evidence “near Benapole border post in East Bengal". In a report sent from the Indian border near Jessore, correspondent Martin Woollacott of the Guardian disclosed that he met a West Bengal lawyer and a businessman who had “taken orders for petrol, dynamite bombs and guns".
Radio Australia also referred to the flow of arms in East Pakistan. Quoting its New Delhi correspondent on 17 April, the Radio said that “in some areas of Indian territory, Western correspondents had seen supplies of various types including arms and weapons moving into East Pakistan". Referring to the capture by the Pakistan Armed Forces of two Indian Border Security Forces who had confessed that they were engaged in
