Pakistan’s ruling clique seems to be desperately trying to provoke India into doing something in regard to Bangla Desh which it could exploit to achieve its sinister ends. It is not possible to draw any other conclusion from the series of outrageous accusations and provocations against India that Islamabad has been mounting ever since the enormity of its heinous crime against the people of East Bengal became known to the whole world. The latest in the series is its holding the staff of the Indian Deputy High Commission in Dacca and their dependants as hostages ... Islamabad is taking the stand that it will let the Indians at Dacca go only if the Government of India sends back all the personnel who were on the staff of its Calcutta mission at the time it unleashed its military terror in East Bengal. Outraged by the Pakistani army’s brutalities, many members of that staff, including the former Deputy High Commissioner, Mr. M. Hossain Ali, severed connection with the Islamabad regime and have decided not to return to West Pakistan. What Islamabad is demanding is that they should all be compulsorily repatriated, a proposition no Government can accept.fifty years ago
