subversive activities in East Pakistan, the Radio confirmed that “in the circumstances it was inevitable that Indian troops might have fallen into the hands of the Pakistan Army".
The French news agency, AFP, reported on 18 April from the Indo-Pakistan border that a French TV team had actually filmed Indian ammunition which arrived at the “new headquarters of East Bengal liberation army near Meherpur. Members of this TV team also secretly filmed Bengali troops at Indian camp just 100 yards from the frontier".
When it became clear that all pockets of insurgency had been eliminated in East Pakistan, the Indian Army began preparing the rebels for launching a 'counter attack'. This was reported by AFP correspondent Brian May who said in a dispatch on 21 April that the soldiers of the 'liberation army at Batai were loading arms and ammunition under the supervision of the Indian officers “who stopped me from going near, but I saw at least a dozen machine guns lined up. The demoralized insurgents who sought refuge in Indian territory were examining their armament with great joy. The Indian Officers refused to give any information but it is clear that the Indian Army is giving all aid to the insurgents for launching a counter attack."
A week later, on 27 April, the British daily Scotsman quoted an Associated Press Correspondent as reporting that during his visit to the border he “encountered a truck loaded with at least 50,000 rifles, together with light and heavy machine guns". The correspondent also reported that an Indian agent traveling with the truck told him that the load formed part of a secret consignment of rifles, grenades, and ammunition supplied by India to aid the rebels in East Pakistan, and that an Indian Army Major was instructing the rebels in the use of these weapons supplied by India. About the same time, AFP confirmed in a New Delhi dispatch of 28 April that" 10,000 ex-servicemen are being organized to fight in East Pakistan",
Bangladesh Government in Calcutta
Foreign correspondents reporting from India also gave a lie to the Indian propaganda about the installation of the so-called Provisional Government of Bangladesh somewhere in East Pakistan. In a dispatch from Calcutta published by the Guardian, London, on 14 April 1971, its correspondent Martin Woollcott described as 'fiction'. Indian Press reports that the members of the Provisional Government were some where in Bangladesh', and confirmed that all of them were in Calcutta where they had been housed in the State Guest House. The correspondent said that the Indians had helped these people in “stagemanaging" what he called “the proclamation of independence last Friday by providing chairs and other furniture, and also the Indian troops in civilian clothes to police the ceremony."
On 15 April 1971, The Times, London reported that “The days of the Republic of Bangladesh in the form it has existed for the last three weeks are numbered. The rebel Government of which Mr. Tajuddin Ahmed is named as Prime Minister supposedly has its headquarters at Chuadanga in Kushtia district close to Indian border. There is no evidence however, that any members of the new Government are actually in Chuadanga". The very next day, on 16 April, Columbia Broadcasting Corporation of New York
