From Brian May Delhi, March 28

Pakistan troops appear to have inflicted a heavy toll on Bengali civilians since they moved out from their barracks last Thursday night and opened fire with automatic weapons, tank cannons and rockets.

Army censorship made it impossible to get any dispatches out of the country, and I and 30 other journalists lost our films and notes when we were stripped and searched before being expelled from Dacca on yesterday morning.

No precise casualty figures were available to journalists, who were confined to the Intercontinental hotel in Dacca, but the intensity of the gunfire that raged all night and continued sporadically throughout Friday made it seem likely that the death toll in the city ran into several hundreds.

Troops demolished barricades with rockets and tanks, set buildings on fire and, according to European eye-witnesses, fired sub-machineguns from Jeeps into the windows of houses in broad daylight.

Along the road to the airport there were signs that Bengalis, armed only with knives, put up a strong resistance before being overwhelmed by rifles and heavier weapons.

Prolonged machinegun fire suggested that students were fighting bock when the Army threw in all its weight to capture their headquarters. -- Agence France Presse.