1971-04-26
Page: 5
Delhi, April 25.-India tonight demanded that Pakistan give a categorical assurance by 11.30 tomorrow (7 a.m. B.S.T.) that it would extend to India all facilities under the Vienna Convention to enable it to close its Deputy High Commission in Dacca and evacuate its staff safely.
Official sources said the time limit expired half an hour before the midday deadline fixed by the Pakistan Government for the closure of the Indian mission in Dacca and the Pakistan Deputy High Commission in Calcutta.
Pakistan is insisting that the 100 Indians at the Dacca mission be flown out by a Pakistan aircraft to Karachi, West Pakistan, and from there back to India by an international airline.
According to Indian officials, Pakistan has not replied to a request a week ago for an aircraft to fly to Dacca from Katmandu, Nepal, to evacuate women and children and a few of the diplomats.
Observers here saw the Indian demand as a warning to Pakistan that the Indian diplomats in Dacca should not be used as a lever for possible Pakistan demands for the repatriation of diplomats sympathetic to the "Bangla Desh Republic", who are occupying the Calcutta mission.
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Our Delhi Correspondent writes :
India is worried over the prospects of radicals taking over the resistance movement in East Bengal. Reports reaching here indicate that the hold of Shaikh Mujibur Rahman's Awami League is slackening and left-wingers are gaining ground.
Pro-Peking Communists in West Bengal are trying to align themselves with their counterparts across the border.
Another problem facing Delhi is that public opinion, particularly in West Bengal, is increasingly in favour of recognizing Bangla Desh.
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About 4,000 Pakistanis marched through central London yesterday in support of the Pakistan Government.
A six-man deputation handed a letter of protest in at India House. Attempts. by demonstrators to burn a pile of newspapers as they entered Fleet Street were stopped by police. As the column passed newspaper offices, the demonstrators chanted slogans protesting at the newspapers' coverage of the East Pakistan situation.