By Our Political Staff
A delegation of three Conservative and three Labour MPs is to visit East Pakistan and east India to see conditions in the refugee areas.

The MPs. some of whom will leave today, will be, on the Labour side, Mr Denis Healey, shadow Foreign Secretary, Mr Arthur Bottomley. MP for Middlesbrough, East, who in 1946 and 1947 went on special missions to India and Burma and later became Commonwealth Secretary, and Mr. James Tinn. MP for Cleveland and chairman of the trade union group.

On the Government side will be Mr James Ramsden, MP for Harrogate and former minister. Mrs Jill Knight, MP for Edgbaston, and Mr James Kilfedder, Ulster Unionist MP for North Down.

There have been personal invitations to some MPs from the Pakistan Government, but it was felt by the leaders of both main parties that it was best for the delegation to go officially from the British Parliament, expenses being met from public funds.

Tim Jones writes: Brigadier Michael Blackman, Oxfam’s co-ordinator of relief services, arrived from Calcutta yesterday and emphasized the need for more cooperation between the major charities supplying aid to the cholera stricken refugees.

The brigadier, who has been organizing Oxfam’s effort in the field, said there was a danger that charities could overlap in their relief effort by buying from the same shopping list.

“This has not happened during this emergency but it could occur in another disaster and it is something I am very conscious of.”

He said it appeared that the epidemic was under control. “But there is now a danger of other diseases hitting these people whose physical strength is weak and who are under-nourished. We must continue with the relief programme. The organization needs as much money as it can get to carry on its work."

The chairman of the Kastur relief organization, Mr Richard Lejeune, who organized the first relief flight to West Bengal last Sunday, arrived on the same aircraft as Brigadier Blackman but he refused to discuss the situation with waiting journalists. He said that he was too emotionally disturbed and that the newspapers were distorting the facts.

Mr Lejeune claimed that he had been searched by police and customs as soon as he stepped from the aircraft.

More than £100,000 is estimated to have been received for the India-Pakistan Relief Fund in Britain, launched on television on Tuesday night. A spokesman said last night: “It’s absolutely fantastic. The response has exceeded all expectations.”

Peter Hazelhurst writes from Calcutta: The Provisional Government of Bangin Dash declared today that many people had died of starvation in the province amid millions of Bengalis would have to face famine unless the conflict ended immediately in a political solution.

At the same time, in reply to Sir Alee Douglas-Home’s plea in the House of Commons yesterday for a political solution the Provisional Government ruled out any settlement which did not give East Bengal the status of a sovereign and free state. This indicates that the deadlock and fighting in East Bengal will continue for the foreseeable future.

The warning was issued in a statement on behalf of the underground Cabinet by the representative of the Bangla Desh mission in Calcutta, the former Pakistan Deputy High Commissioner. Mr. Hossein Ali.

Delhi, June 10.—Refugees from East Pakistan are continuing to enter India at the rale of 100,000 a day. Mr Balgovind Verma, the Minister of Labour and Rehabilitation, said today.

Mr K. K. Das. Secretary to the Indian Health Ministry, said today that the cholera epidemic among East Pakistan refugees could spread throughout India.

He told reporters that until yesterday it was estimated that about 5.000 people had died in the epidemic.—Reuter.

Small nation for India to feed, page 7