for the Army action on the previous night and said to his chief escort, Brigadier Arbab, Thank God, Pakistan has been saved.' He repeated this statement on his arrival at Karachi.
When Bhutto was making this optimistic remark, I was surveying mass graves in the university area where I found three pits of five to fifteen metres diameter cach. They were filled with fresh earth. But not officer was prepared to disclose the exact number of casualtics. I started going round the buildings, particularly Iqbal IIall and Jagannath Hall white, I had thought from a distance, had been razed to the ground during the action. Iqbal Hall bad apparently been hit by only two and Jagannath Hall by four, rockets. The rooms were mostly charred, A few dozen half-burnt rifles and stray papers were still smoldering. The damage was very grave-but not enough to match the horrible picture I had conjured up on the verandah of General Tikka's headquarters.
The foreign press fancied several thousand deaths (in the university area) while army officers placed the figure at around a hundred. Officially, only forty deaths were admitted.
From the university area. I drove on the principal roads of Dacca city and saw odd corpses lying on the footpaths or near the corner of a winding street. There were no mountains of bodics, as was alleged later. Ilowever, I experienced a strange and ominous sensation. I do not know what it signified but I could not bear it for long. I drove on to a different area.
In the old city, I saw some streets still barricaded but there was no one to man the road blocks. Everybody had shrunk to the sanctuary of his house. On one street comer, however, I saw a shadow, like a displaced soul, quickly lapsing into a side lane. After a round of the city, I went of Dhanmandi where I visited Mujib's house. It was totally deserted. From the scattered thins, it appeared that it had been thoroughly searched. I did not find anything memorable except on overturned life-size portrait of Rabindranath Tagore. The frame was cracked in several places, but the image was intact.
The outer gate of the house, too, had lost its valuable decoration. During Mujib's rule they had fixed a brass replica of a Bangladesh map and had added six stars to represent the Awami League's Six points. But now only the black iron bars of the gate, with holes for the metal fixtures, were there. The glory that had quickly dawned had quickly disappeared.
I hurried back to the cantonment for lunch. I found the atmosphere very different there. The tragedy in the city had cased the nerves of defence personnel and their dependents. They felt that the storm after a long, lull had finally blown past leaving the horizon clear. The officers chatted in the officer's mess with a visible air of relaxation. Peeling an orange, Captain Chaudhry said. “The Bengalis have been sorted out well and proper-at least for generation. 'Major Malik added. 'Yes, they only know the language of force. Their history says so.’
