1971-08-11
Page: 8
NEW DELHI., Aug. 10—India and Pakistan have agreed, after a three‐and‐one‐half month impasse, on the repatriation of personnel at their respective diplomatic missions in Dacca and Calcutta.
Indian officials disclosed here today that more than 200 Indians at the Deputy High Commission, or consulate, in Dacca, East Pakistan, would be flown back to New Delhi on Thursday aboard Swiss and Soviet planes. Thirty West Pakistanis of the Pakistani Deputy High Commission in Calcutta will be flown to Karachi on an Iranian plane.
The two missions have been shut since April 26 at Pakistan's instance. The Pakistani move was in retaliation for the seizure of the Calcutta mission eight days earlier by the East Pakistani staff members.
The East Pakistanis took over the mission in the name of the Bengali independence movement and declared it the first foreign mission of Bangla Desh, or Bengal Nation, the name given to East Pakistan by the insurgents.
The most important snag in repatriating the diplomats and their families was Pakistan's demand for private interviews with, each Bengali to “satisfy itself” about which ones did not wish to return. A Swiss diplomat finally arranged and conducted the interviews with the more than 60 Bengalis in Calcutta, and all refused to return.