Blood and tears

In the first week of March 1971, when the Awami League had fired the first salvo of revolt in East Pakistan and it triggered off a forest fire of lawlessness, arson, loot and wanton murder all over the province, a senior official of the federal Information Ministry instructed mc that my news service should not put out any story about the atrocities that were being committed on non-Bengalis by the rebels in the eastern half of the country. All other press services and newspapers in West Pakistan were given similar instructions.

When I remonstrated with the Information Ministry official diat it was unethical to clamp a blackout on the news, he explained that press reporting of the killing of non-Bengalis in East Pakistan would unleash serious repercussions in West Pakistan and provoke reprisals against the Bengalis residing in the western wing of the country. "It would exacerbate the current tension in the relations between the two Wings", he argued, "and it would also undermine the prospects of a negotiated settlement with the Awami League". The argument had an clement of sound logic and a humanitarian veneer. Consequently, the news media in West Pakistan faithfully followed the federal government's instructions to suppress all news pertaining to the genocidal frenzy unleashed by the Awami League against the hapless West Pakistanis, Biharis and other non-Bengalis in rebellion-hit East Pakistan.

The Awami League militants had gained control over the telecommunications network in East Pakistan during the first few days of their uprising and they showed meticulous care in excising even the haziest mention of the massacre of non-Bengalis in press and private telegrams to West Pakistan and the overseas world. Word of the mushrooming, organised violence against non-Bengalis in East Pakistan reached West Pakistan through the West Pakistanis who fled from the Awami League's terror regime in planes and ships. But no newspaper in the Western Wing of the country