বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (ত্রয়োদশ খণ্ড)/৪৩
| শিরোনাম | সূত্র | তারিখ |
| কুয়ালালামপুর কমনওয়েলথ সংসদীয় সম্মেলনে মিঃ আর্থার বটম লের বক্তৃতা | বাংলাদেশ ডকুমেণ্টস | ৩ সেপ্টেম্বর, ১৯৭১ |
Statement by Mr. Arthur Bottomley (U.K.) at the Commonwealth
Parliamentary Conference, Kuala Lumpur
September 13, 1971
....But I think, where things went wrong again was because of simple circumstances. When the Army came in, the first thing they did was to go to Dhaka, the capital of East Pakistan, and approach the Police Station. Now, the official story is when the Police Station was approached, the Police started firing the soldiers. But I heard a second story which was that one of these military leaders, arrogant, bombastic, demanded the Police lay down their arms, and the Chief of Police said. “On whose authority?”. Whereupon there was again another demand. “The arms are to be returned forthwith, if no, we fire." And firing opened up. The police in the main, East Pakistanis, and the troops in the main, West Pakistanis, thought that the troops from West Pakistan were going to mow them all down. And so, we have the situation where these men lost faith in the President of the country. And there is no doubt at all they created a situation where there was a breakdown of law and order. But instead of having a civil administrator, who could tackle this difficult political, social and economic situation, a Military Commander was put in, a man, whom I am very glad to say, has since been removed, General Tikka Khan. When I met General Tikka Khan, he told me that if anybody did anything to upset this troops, then the order would be given immediately to shoot them down. I pleaded with him not to follow this policy. And it was because of this policy that the troops in the towns and the villages, knowing that there was this kind of leadership, behaving in the way went wild, and thousands and thousands of villagers terrorized, fled from the country. Moslems went first, followed by Hindus. Hindus understandably because they have been through this kind of circumstances before. And so you have a situation where millions of refugees had come across from East Pakistan to India. India through no cause of her own has probably one of the greatest problems any country has to handle. I saw the refugee camps, I saw the wonderful work being done by these Indian Administrators. They are short of food and equipment. It is true that the world is giving help, but not enough. My own country, for example, has given £8 million of aid to India and a million pounds to Pakistan, and I can confidently say we are going to give more. This problem in India is one that ought to be shared by all the Commonwealth countries, and all the Commonwealth countries should in turn be putting the pressure to bear upon the United nations as a whole.....
....I would say finally, Mr. President, this: that the only way in which we can bring about peace and security in that part of the world is by recognition by the President of Pakistan that the democratically elected leader of East Pakistan, Sheikh Mujib, is the one who could speak for the people. I said to the President personally and I repeat it here: one should learn by British history. We put a man prison one day and the next day he was the leader of his nation.