DACCA, Pakistan, Dec. 26—India is uncertain whether to hand over the former leaders of the Pakistani Government here ‘to Bangladesh officials for trial as war criminals, India's special envoy here indicated today.

The envoy, Durga Prasad Dhar, a high official of the Indian Foreign Ministry, said India was “examining its responsibilities under international law” toward the prisoners.

But international law “is unclear” in this situation, he said, and he refused to say whether India intended to turn the Pakistani prisoners over to the new regime proclaimed by the Bengalis in East Pakistan.

More and more, irate Bengalis are demanding that the Indian Army let them try the former Pakistani leaders of East Pakistan.

Two days ago the Bangladesh home minister, A.H.M. Kamaruzzaman, announced that the Bengali authorities had already arrested 30 top Pakistani civilian officials and would soon put them on trial for genocide.

Without mentioning the home minister's assertion, Mr. Dhar said today that India continued to hold all these Pakistani officials in the Dacca military cantonment.

As part of the effort to put pressure on the Indians, seven Bengali women whose husbands were arrested and apparently killed by the Pakistani regime held a news conference today to describe what they said were Pakistani atrocities.

The women, whose husbands were all leaders, high police officials or ranking officers in the Pakistani army, said their husbands had been suddenly dragged from their homes last March, then tortured and killed. None of the women had ever received any official notification from the Pakistani authorities about the fate of their husbands.

In an emotional scene, ‐the women demanded that the Indian Government find out what had happened to the men and try the Pakistani officials before repatriating them to West Pakistan.

India holds about 50 highlevel Pakistani civilian officials, 1,000 Pakistani businessmen and professionals and over 35,000 Pakistani troops in the Dacca cantonment.

According to some estimates, the total number of Pakistanis that India captured in East Pakistan, including the regular militia, is over 100,000.

Sneaking at a news conference at the Inter‐Continental Hotel, Mr. Dhar said that “India wants to uphold its solemn obligations to protect its prisoners under the Geneva Convention.” But at the same time, he added, India does not want to be accused by the Bengalis of harboring men who have been proved to be guilty of “horrendous crimes.”

An articulate and elegant man, dressed in a gray pinstriped suit, Mr. Dhar said, “We're a rather conservative people, India,” and “we won't be a party to murder.”

Great Faith in Regime

Mr. Dhar added that he had “great faith” in the fairness of the Bangladesh government and was sure it would deal fairly with the Pakistanis if it did put them on trial.

Mr. Dhar also said:

¶The Indian Army will stay in Bangladesh only as long as necessary, its withdrawal “to be determined by the Bangladesh government.

¶He had been horrified to learn that the Bengalis had just uncovered evidence that the Pakistanis deliberately murdered “scores of railroad engineers and technicians,” in an effort to destroy Bangladesh's transportation system.

¶India would not let the Biharis, the non‐Bengali minority, be starved or killed by vengeful Bengalis.

Several hundred thousand Biharis are cut off from food in two communities near Dacca. They have been afraid to go out In search of food, and there has been reports that Mukti Bahini, the Bengali guerrillas, have gone into the Bihari areas and arrested groups of them.

Two Biharis from Mohammadpur, a middle‐class suburb of Dacca, said in an interview today that a group of seven Bengalis led by a policeman in uniform entered their house last night and took away five persons.

The Biharis, who appeared badly shaken, asked that their names not be used for fear of reprisals. The house next to theirs formerly belonged to a Bengali who was murdered with his wife and children by a Bihari crowd last March. The two men said they knew nothing about it.