From Our Correspondent
Delhi, March 31

The Indian Parliament today unanimously passed a resolution expressing " sympathy and support for the people of East Pakistan.

The resolution, moved by Gandhi, the Prime Minister, said that "this House records its profound conviction that the historic upsurge of the 76 million people of East Bengal will triumph. The House wishes to ******** that their struggle and and sacrifices will receive the wholehearted sympathy and support of the people of India."

The House called upon "all peoples and the governments of the world to take urgent and constructive stops to prevail upon the Government of Pakistan to put an end immediately to the systematic decimation of people which amounts to genocide".

While Government officials say that they have no knowledge of any appeal to Delhi by Shaikh Mujibur Rahman's supporters a news agency report from Agartala, Assam, quotes an Awami League leader as saying that his party has sent a telegram to Mrs. Gandhi seeking India's immediate intervention to stop genocide " in the eastern wing.


Delhi. March 31. - Mrs. Gandhi told the Indian Parliament today that the people of East Pakistan were being suppressed by "bayonets, machineguns, tanks, artillery and aircraft ".

She said that atrocities were being perpetrated on an unprecedented scale upon an unarmed and innocent people and Indians could not remain indifferent to the "macabre tragedy" being enacted close to their border.

Forces from West Pakistan had unleashed a massive attack on the people of the east to supress their urges and aspirations, she added.

"Instead of respecting the will of the people so unmistakably, expressed through the election in Pakistan in December 1970, the Government of Pakistan has chosen to flout the mandate of the people ".—Reuter.


Calcutta, March 31.—The people of West Bengal today observed a total strike to express solidarity with the struggle by Bengalis in East Pakistan for independence from West Pakistan. Shops, businesses and offices are closed and there is no traffic on the roads. Train and air services have been suspended.

Many Bengalis here see the so-called Bangla Desh independence as the greatest event in the area since the partition of India 24 ago, which split Bengal in two.

Animosity between Hindus and Muslims which caused the split and led to the influx of hundreds of thousands of Hindu refugees, into West Bengal and Muslim refugees into East Bengal, has been forgotten at least for the present, on both sides of the border.

There is a feeling on both sides that people may be able to return to their birthplaces should East Pakistan win its freedom as Bangla Desh. Some probably hope to get back the lands which they lost at partition.—Reuter