Word: desh
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Dates: during 1971-1971
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...have been killed by the heavily armed West Pakistani troopers. But soldiers have also suffered severe casualties at the hands of irate peasants. The army controlled the capital of Dacca, the vital ports of Chittagong and Khulna, and several other towns. But a ragtag resistance movement called the Bangla Desh Mukti Fauj (Bengal State Liberation Forces) was reportedly already in control of at least one-third of East Pakistan, including many cities and towns. West Pakistani authorities have almost completely succeeded in obscuring the actual details of the fighting from the outside world by expelling all foreign newsmen from East...
That night 53 East Pakistani policemen easily overpowered a handful of soldiers at the police station. Then, fanning out to nearby villages with all the .303 Enfield rifles and ammunition they could carry, the policemen joined forces with 100 college students who were already working for Bangla Desh. The students were teaching the rudiments of guerrilla warfare to local peasants, who were armed only with hatchets, farm tools and bamboo staves. Within two days, the police and students had organized several thousand volunteers and militiamen of the East Pakistan Rifles and laid plans for simultaneous attacks on the five army...
Little Headway. Next day the Pakistan army dispatched another infantry company from Jessore to stage a counterattack on Kushtia. At Bishakali village, halfway to Kushtia, the new company fell into a booby trap set by Bangla Desh forces. Two Jeeps in the nine-vehicle army convoy plunged into a deep pit covered with bamboo and vines. Seventy-three soldiers were killed on the spot, and dozens of others were chased down and slain...
...last week, the green, red and gold flags of Bangla Desh fluttered from rooftops, trucks and even rickshas in Kushtia. Bengali administrators were running the region under the local party leader, Dr. Ashabul Haq, 50, a forceful physician who packs a Welby & Scott revolver and a Spanish Guernica automatic. At week's end, two army battalions established an outpost a few miles from Kushtia. They were reported, however, to be making little headway against furious resistance. Even if the soldiers managed to reach Kushtia, the townspeople were more than ready to fight again...
Mendicant Among Nations. If East Pakistan eventually takes its place in the world community as Bangla Desh, it will have the world's eighth largest population and lowest per capita income ($50 a year). It will, inevitably, become a mendicant among nations, and the U.S. will face the need to increase the $250 million a year in foreign aid that it now gives to the combined wings of the country. East Pakistan has little industry to speak of, and the world demand for jute is gradually dropping. West Pakistan will also be left smaller and poorer, though...