Indian Subterfuge
Unfortunately, however, India's attitude, unhelpful at the best of times, was not only grievously antagonistic to Pakistan but also downright hypocritical on the strictly humanitarian question concerning the return of Pakistan citizens.
For one thing, Indians gave out fantastic figures of the displaced persons from East Pakistan. They took advantage of the presence of foreign correspondents and diplomats, who were taken to some of these camps for “sample" check, and the word was made to believe that one group saw at one place could be automatically multiplied by factors on up to one thousand to arrive at what India gave out as the actual figure of such displaced persons! There has so far been no actual census of these DP's under international auspices, and in the absence of such a census. India's unilateral figures are to say the least arbitrary. A good example of this was provided when three British MP's admitted at a Press Conference at the London airport on 5 July 1971 that they had prejudged the situation and their opinions were based on talks they had with the 'refugees' in West Bengal through Indian Government interpreters.
Secondly, the Indian authorities while making a great deal of noise about the displaced persons from East Pakistan. left no one in doubt about their real intention not to let the DP's return to their homes in Pakistan. As early as 3 June 1971, India's Defense Minister Jagjivan Ram said in a speech in Asansole: “We will not send these evacuees to Yahya Khan's Pakistan but will only allo-w them to return to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Bangladesh". This Indian design was given further credence when the Indian Prime Minister herself said at Handwara, near Srinagar, on 20 June 1971 that her Government wanted “not to allow them to become victims of the Pakistan Army". “We shall not push them out to be mowed down", she said, which war sheer political euphemism, meaning that she would not let the Pakistanis return to their homes"
Thirdly, India started shifting more and more of East Pakistani DP's into the interior as far away as Madhya Pradesh. Observers note that since more foreign correspondents and diplomats were visiting these refugee camps, India was finding it difficult to show the refugees in such fantastic figures as claimed by Indian propagandists. That is why the refugees were being taken away to different states on the pretext of better accommodation. In the process, bonafide Pakistani citizens were removed from the border areas to faraway places, thus making their return almost impossible. No wonder that, as reported by Reuter News Agency from New Delhi on 10 June 1971, “the West Bengal Health Minister said the State Government was taking a serious view of the fact that some of the refugees were unwilling to move from the borders and some were jumping off the trains along the route after boarding them."
Inflow of DP's Hindered
Finally, on the ground, India is making it more and more difficult for Pakistanis to return. According to reports received in Dacca from the border areas, all sorts of hindrances are being put to stop the displaced Pakistanis from returning to their homes in East Pakistan. A Dinajpur report on 22 June said that 250 displaced Pakistanis who had
